Moyer pitches a great game and goes 7 innings, Romero pitches the 8th and Lidge comes in, gets two quick outs. Single, walk, error, then double. It seems like Lidge always gets two quick outs and then struggles with the final out.
While it is easy to blame Lidge, one must also consider Rollins and is anemic bat. He made contact all 5 at bats, but he has no control. He pops up, hits into grounders...either he is late or early or he's trying to kill the ball every time. The fact that he is making contact indicates that he would possibly be a great hitter, but he has always seemed to preoccupied with the homer. The funny thing is, if he was a purely contact hitter, which he avoids, he'd possibly be one of the all time greats at shortstop and a definite shoo-in for the HOF. As it currently is, with his career .200 and change average, he will never be a candidate.
"We haven't really thought about it too much. We've heard all the chatter about him coming back," Orpik told ESPN.com. "It doesn't change anything for us to be honest. Even if he does come back, we all have a lot of respect for the player he is. But that being said, I don't know how effective he's going to be if he comes back and he's playing at whatever level he's playing at."
Orpik, who to my mind has been a ghost for the most part since the first round vs. the Flyers who must've put a ding on him. He is not as physical as he has been in past, and you can see this by the way that Detroit's forwards enter the zone and cross the slot with impunity. Pittsburgh's hits are coming from their forwards. Kunitz, Kennedy etc. are taking runs and getting away with charging for the most part.
Red Wings need to bench Draper and put Abdelwhatever his name back in. With Datsyuk coming back, they need to figure out who will mark Malkin. His size and skating ability is giving them fits and they need to find a Richards type who can be physical with him, even if he is smaller.
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