Kent Tekulve in left field

I remember the game Mike Prisuta describes in his column about "Tanner's commitment to the abstract" in 1979. I also share a bit of his sense that Mac may play it by the book a bit too often. It makes a lot of sense to attack another club methodically, to have the discipline to adhere to that method, and to attack weaknesses in another club. But, like Josh Fogg, a manager without the best stuff can only be most effective when he has the other team on their heels.

When a method becomes predictable, it provides an opportunity for the opposing team to focus on their more obvious weaknesses. It's easier to get better, too, when you know how you'll be tested by another club. When a relief pitcher has dominated right-handed hitters and just struck out one of your best lefties, sometimes you have to attack his strength and smack him with the unexpected or he'll his continue his good work toward improving the obvious weakness everyone expects you'll test.

In football, I always admire the coaches who attack another team's strength. Say team B has a strong D-line but the worst secondary in the league. And team A has a fairly balanced offense. All week long everyone expects team A to attack team B's secondary. A good coach might see that as an opportunity to do the opposite. Team B opens with nickels and dimes with new wrinkles they've worked on all week, but team A opts instead to run right at them. When this works, team A has 100 yards rushing and ten points before team B realizes team A came to run.

Or you'll see an offense take an unconventional approach that appears to succeed because the defense can't adjust. Remember when the Patrios came out and threw something like 30 straight passes on the Steelers? They couldn't adjust.

When an unconventional approach doesn't work, the coach looks like an idiot. Perhaps it's easier to think of examples from football, where games happen only once per week and are surrounded by so much more expectation.

Mac is not a perfect machine in the dugout, but there have been times where I've thought the predictability of his matchups weaken their edge. During the losing streak, for example, there were times when Mac was shrugging his shoulders and saying we had all the matchups we could have wanted. No doubt when the Pirates get on their next long winning streak we'll see some crazy decisions paying off here and there.