Set-up studs and wishful thinking

Is it really smart to use your best reliever as a set-up guy? Something about the way people are spinning Dusty Baker's decision to use Joe Borowski with a lead strikes me as wishful thinking. This isn't the only place I've heard that line of argument so don't excoriate me if that's not exactly what that article says. (Thanks to the Clark & Addison guys for that link, BTW.)

Manager does something that is stupid or questionable, and everyone turns it upside down to praise it as something smart. This happens a lot with the Cubs. If it was Lloyd McClendon, no one would bend over backwards to argue that it was a smart move. Instead they'd damn him as a moron who continues to use Borowski with a lead. McClendon prefers Simon to Craig Wilson (in Wilson's can't hit breaking pitches phase). National media: McClendon is a moron who should be fired. Baker prefers Eric Karros to Hee Seop Choi (in Choi's can't hit breaking pitches phase). National media: Dusty Baker is a genius. I'm overstating the case here but the basic observation holds I think.

Explain to me, how is using Hawkins first necessarily tied to using Borowski in high-leverage situations at all? It's two separate issues. If using Hawkins (or Betancourt, over in Cleveland) in tie and slim lead situations is smart, why does that mean that it's smart to use Borowski an inning or two later?

P.S. Speaking of wishful thinking, check out this essay explaining how Borowski is really a stud. We can play the same game with any high-profile relief pitcher. Last night when Mesa came on with a four-run lead, I says to Mrs. Rowdy, "watch Mesa make this look hard." He has a reputation for being volatile when used in non-save situations, and sure enough he came through last night. But you won't hear me going on about how we have to throw those stats out when we assess his overall quality as a ballplayer.

Make every moment matter. Better said:

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics, or of mathematicians, if you will, to say, that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want, or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. It is a tempest of fancies, and the only ballast I know, is a respect to the present hour.

Let's go Bucs.