Pop! Goes The Infield

Not even flies drop this fast. Cristian Guzman, the recently-hot-hitting shortstop, tweaked his hamstring and will be out for five to seven days.

This is a surprisingly tough loss to take, because of the injury to Jose Vidro and this team’s poor roster construction. And strangely, the roster composition is being magnified each time Jim Bowden makes a move.

It’s like he’s filling a pothole with gravel. It may get you through rush hour without anyone losing a hubcap, but you’re going to just have to be out there the next morning to refill it.

For the short-term, it appears that Guzman won’t need to go on the DL. There’ll be three hypothetical infielders on tonight’s roster then: Mr. Celibacy, Jamey Carroll (The man who can’t play every day because he’s never played every day finally gets his long-awaited profile), Henry Mateo, and (sit for this) Carlos Baerga.

After Guzman’s injury last night, Carroll slid to short and Baerga (Seen here in the orange) waddled to second.

If Carlos is a major league second basemen, I’m Roger Angell.

You should’ve seen his play last night. With the go-ahead run in scoring position, Royce “Predator” (Thanks, Ryan!) Clayton ripped a liner towards second base. Thankfully, it was a play that didn’t require any range.

Baerga dived to his left, kicking his legs high on the air to get parallel with the ground. Ordinarily, one would like to see lateral movement on a dive, but he just sort of moved at a right angle to the ground. He hung in midair for a moment or two like a bad David Copperfield illusion and somehow, miraculously, the ball clanked off his glove. He got just enough of it to keep it on the infield, scampered to his feet, waddled over, picked it up and fired to first to preserve the tie.

It was a nice play -- a play that 99% of major league second basemen make -- and one that required sheer reflexes. That he turned it into a surreal work of art amplifies his inability at the position. He wasn’t a good fielder in 1995. And he’s definitely not a good fielder ten years and fifty pounds later.

Nonetheless, Baerga will ride one of those motorized carts you see fat people riding in at WalMart out to second base tonight, and for the next few days. And ground-baller Zach Day will be praying he doesn’t get the call in the bullpen.

This just emphasizes the team’s need to bring up another infielder -- even if it’s just for a few days while Guzman heals. Rick Short says hello!

Instead, they’re calling up two more pitchers, Tony Armas and Claudio Vargas. They’re coming up for the DL’d Jose Vidro and (presumably) optioned Endy Chavez.

Why are they going to twelve pitchers all of a sudden? Especially with the sudden lack of options on the bench? There’s no rhyme or reason to it, and it doesn’t seem like they have any kind of plan.

We’ve survived all year with 11 pitchers, and have managed exceptionally well with 10 over the last week. Going to twelve makes little sense.

In a close game, there won’t be any pinch-hitters available, just Jeffrey Hammonds and Tony Blanco. And that’s hide-your-eyes bad.

Obviously something else will shake out in two weeks when Vidro comes back, but, in the meantime, it’d be much more important to have another bat on the bench than an extra pitcher -- especially the way he lets his non-Ohka, non-Day starters throw fairly deep.

But, then I thought it was crazy to have 7 outfielders on the roster too.

What’s the plan, Jim? What are you trying to do? Have you thought about how the roster composition affects the in-game strategy and, in this case, severely limits your options?

Sometimes I really wonder what the answer is.