Thursday, June 15, 2006

Back to the Minors

It appears that after his brief tryout Lastings Milledge will be headed back to the minors when Xavier Nady comes off the DL, probably early next week.
Milledge showed flahses of brilliance in his brief stay but he also pissed off Willie Randolph a few times.
There was the infamous fan high five incident.
Then last night he didn't run hard on Franco's double. I watched that play again, Randolph was right to get on his ass for that. He should have been running full speed the whole way, with two outs there was no need to look back.
And now, it turns out Milledge missed the bus to today's game and showed up a little more than an hour before the game. That earned him a reprimand.

Willie doesn't make the final decision on player moves but he has said he wants to get other players (Franco, Marrero, Woodward) some at bats at DH during interleague play. Meaning he doesn't want Milledge in left and Floyd DHing all the games. He also said he feels Milledge needs to play everyday.

If I were in charge I'd keep him here, playing everyday in right field. But I don't mind this move too much. Honestly, at most its only for 2 more months. He will certainly be a September callup and he's already earned himself a spot in the outfield next season.

So if he does get sent down, it won't be greatness lost, just greatness deferred.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with the move 100% and I'd also bring up Hernandez to be a late inning defensive replacement in the infield, which I see being one of the few glaring weaknesses. But probably they will live with it b/c they like Marerro's bat and that he can be an emergency catcher.