{"id":108,"date":"2005-06-12T23:02:55","date_gmt":"2005-06-13T04:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jetnation.com\/?p=108"},"modified":"2005-06-12T23:02:55","modified_gmt":"2005-06-13T04:02:55","slug":"the-piniella-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/2005\/06\/12\/the-piniella-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"The Piniella Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Nick Ferraro<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recently Lou Piniella chastised a reporter after being asked why the manager chose to leave his starting pitcher in the game after surrendering six runs in the second inning. It was a typical day for the Devil Ray\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s followed by a typical Piniella tirade containing more expletives than the Rays have wins. It seemed a sensible question on the part of the reporter. After all, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t usually see a pitcher stick around after a six-run inning even in Tampa. The one notable thing about the outburst is that it was followed by an apology from Piniella. It was as sincere and heartfelt an apology as you will hear. The resignation in Piniella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice was so tangible that it shifted the empathy from the verbally scorched reporter to the manager himself. I have felt bad for the Devil Rays before but never for their manager. Piniella exiled himself to Tampa. He chose this fate. Now he should match the resignation in his voice with his resignation from the game.<\/p>\n<p>Piniella was a winner prior to Tampa. He was named Manager of the Year in 1995, and held a career winning percentage of .531. The Mariners averaged 100 wins per year including the post-season in Lou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last three campaigns in Seattle. They played in the post-season four times with Piniella at the helm, and amassed 116 wins including the playoffs in 2001. Lou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Reds won the World Series in 1990 compiling an 8-2 post-season record and upsetting the heavily-favored Oakland A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in four straight games. Lou also won two rings as a player, and he was the Rookie of the Year in 1969. In addition, you have to respect Piniella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s longevity. As a player and manager, Piniella has been in the major leagues for 27 years. You simply cannot last without talent for such a long period of time.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite the long list of career accomplishments, it has been quite a while since Lou has won anything. Piniella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last and only championship as a manger was 25 years ago, and if the Rays maintain their current pace, Lou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s winning percentage as a skipper will drop to a shade over .500. Why does Sweet Lou get such a pass for losing? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect the Rays to rise up and make the post season. We are all more realistic than that, but Lou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s team certainly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over-achieve. In his two years in Tampa, the Rays have averaged 95 losses having barely avoided 100 in his first year there in 1993. The Rays are currently on a pace for their worst year yet under the volatile Piniella. After one-third of the season, the Rays have only 19 wins putting them in line to drop 105 games. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect much from the Rays, but couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any manager match Piniella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s production in Tampa?<\/p>\n<p>Then again, winning isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even the goal in Tampa. Piniella knew that when he left Seattle. We aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t asking too much of Lou. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be happy if the Rays were semi-competitive. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be overjoyed to see them win 75 games. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be happy if Piniella didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to apologize. A Piniella eruption used to be part of the fun. It was part of the allure of the man. We forgave Lou each time he came out and threw first base into right field. We forgave him each time he kicked dirt on home plate. We forgave him even though he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask for it. Now that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s asking, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like we should any more. It just feels like another loss. It feels like acceptance. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want Lou to accept this. We had to wonder why he would go to Tampa originally knowing he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a chance. Now we are left to wonder why he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nick Ferraro Recently Lou Piniella chastised a reporter after being asked why the manager chose to leave his starting pitcher in the game after surrendering six runs in the second inning. It was a typical day for the Devil Ray\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s followed by a typical Piniella tirade containing more expletives than the Rays have wins. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[226,33],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-baseball","7":"category-nick-ferraro"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-1K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}