Joe Torre has plenty of second-guessers

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Joe Torre says he won’t second-guess himself about how his awful pitching moves and general overmanaging cost the Dodgers critical Game 4 of the NLCS.

No worries, though, everybody else is doing it for him.

It wasn’t just one move, or two. It was all of them, literally every single one:

Lowe: 74 pitches, he was rolling. Hooked too early after 5.

Kershaw: In a 3-2 Game 4 in the 6th inning? The kid was actually hyperventilating on the mound. Wrong situation ... moment too big for a 20-year old.

Park: Nice comeback season, but honestly, look into his eyes, do you really trust him with your season? That’s what I thought.

Beimel: Torre burned up 2 lefties in the same inning, saving none for later, which would prove fatal.

Kuo: He blows the Phils away in a great 7th, gives up one harmless leadoff single to the probable league MVP (Howard) in the 8th, and Torre hooks him that quick? Bad impulse. Guess he tired of the Status Kuo.

Wade: Hadn’t he thrown 34 pitches in 2 innings just one night earlier? What was he doing out there at all? He was gassed. Victorino made Joe pay.

Broxton: Since when did he become a TWO inning pitcher? He sometimes labors through one. Matt Stairs’ home run is now in its 3rd orbit of Mars.

Incredible that someone with Torre’s sparkling reputation and record could go 0 for 7 in pitching changes all in the space of 3 innings, getting all 7 wrong.

Baseball luck? Maybe a little. But the feeling here is that after getting blasted for staying with Billingsley TOO long in Game 2, Joe overcompensated in the other direction, egregiously overmanaging.

Hey, everybody has bad days, Joe just picked a very inopportune time to have his.

I could easily be second guessed myself for hindsight being 20/20, but in truth, I was yelling at the TV screen with each and every move Joe made.

In a final note, how ironic, isn’t it, that the much-loved man with the pristine rep, the man who calmed the clubhouse and smartly directed the Dodgers to the LCS, is the same manager whose one meltdown of extreme mismanagement probably cost his team a shot at the World Series.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green is a former sportswriter for the L.A. Times and National Sports Daily. He is currently Senior Sports Producer for KTLA Prime News.