BASEBALL : Kelly Fell Asleep at the Double Switch

It’s called a double switch.

American League managers seldom have to use it.

They are blessed with a designated hitter and are not required to pinch-hit for their pitcher--and then, perhaps, bring in a position player to fill the pitcher’s spot in the batting order when the new pitcher takes the mound.

Thus, the double switch is a test of the manager’s ability to appropriately use his personnel over the course of a game.

On Monday, the day off before Game 3 of the World Series, Minnesota Twin Manager Tom Kelly, forced to operate without a designated hitter during the three games in the National League park, was asked if he had concerns about dealing with the double switch and the possibility of pinch-hitting for his pitchers.

“I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying about this double-switch thing,” he said facetiously. “To me, it’s up there with rocket science.”

In a brain tester of a game Tuesday night, Kelly employed seven pitchers, eight pinch-hitters and a World Series record 23 players.

He made so many moves of the type he doesn’t have to make during the regular season that, at the end, when the Atlanta Braves finally drained out a 5-4 victory in 12 innings, there were only two players left on Kelly’s bench.

They were pitchers Jack Morris, who starts tonight, and Kevin Tapani, who goes Thursday night.

Kelly made so many moves that with two out, runners at second and third in the top of the 12th and Kirby Puckett, the cleanup hitter at the plate, the Braves knew he had no one left to pinch-hit for pitcher Mark Guthrie, who was scheduled to hit next, the result of a much earlier double switch.

Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox ordered an intentional walk to Puckett, and Kelly countered with his only move, calling on relief ace Rick Aguilera to pinch-hit for fellow pitcher Guthrie.

Aguilera was once drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals as a third baseman out of Edgewood High in West Covina. He had a career average of .203 with three home runs in seven seasons with the New York Mets, but he hadn’t batted in his 2 1/2 years with the Twins.

Is this who you want up with a World Series game on the line?

Aguilera did his best, drilling a sharp drive to center, where Ron Gant made the catch, preserving the tie--but only briefly.

Kelly was forced to use Aguilera, who had already saved five of the Twins’ six postseason wins, in a situation where there was no lead to protect.

Working for the third time in four days, Aguilera gave up a single, walk and single by Mark Lemke as Atlanta closed to 2-1 in this best-of-seven tournament.

Kelly later defended the moves that left him without a bona fide pinch-hitter in the 12th, saying that in rebounding from a 4-1 deficit against Steve Avery and trying to break the tie before that final inning, he felt justified in using up his resources.

“I feel real good about the way we came back and real bad that we lost,” he said. “I mean, it really shouldn’t have come down to the 12th. We had several good chances and didn’t get the job done.”

On that point he’s right. The Twins had a runner at third with fewer than two out in both the sixth and eighth innings, needing only a fly ball to get a critical run home, and came away empty both times.

They had a runner at second with two out in the ninth, but Randy Bush, the American League’s leading pinch-hitter, struck out.

They had a runner at second base with one out in the 10th, but Kent Hrbek took a called third strike and Paul Sorrento, batting for pitcher Carl Willis after the first of what became two intentional walks to Puckett, struck out.

And in the 12th, even before that second intentional walk, they had runners at first and third when Hrbek took another third strike.

Forty-two players, a World Series record, were used in this game. One of them, a Kelly pinch-hitter named Chili Davis, usually the Twins’ designated hitter, capped their comeback with a two-run homer in the eighth.

The manager had the right man at the right place then, and he is certainly not to be blamed when some of his most reliable hitters take called third strikes and fail to score runs simply by making an appropriate out.

But it is also the manager’s responsibility to be three or four innings ahead of the game.

At one point, Kelly pinch-hit for a pitcher, then only one inning later pinch-hit for the position player that he employed in the double switch.

At the end, he was forced to try to win it with a pinch-hitting pitcher, and faced with the prospect of going to Morris and then Tapani had the game lingered.