I noticed last night....

[BuckPack]

that the team was far more relaxed than I've seen them the last week or so (actually, since Houston). Now before you say it's b/c they were staked to such a huge lead, it was something that was apparent to me even in the first few at bats, and especially after the first inning when Gallardo got through the error and hit batter on 1st and 3rd with one out w/out allowing a run. So this got me thinking back to Prince's comments a few weeks ago (after his blast in the 8th to come from behind and beat the phillies) in which he called out the fans for booing the team.....

with such a young team maybe this long road trip was the best for them: playing at home, in front of an anxious crowd has a lot more inherent pressure for a young, struggling team in a pennant race. On the road, they can play the "us against the world, nobody expects us to win" mentality and relax at the plate and in the field. They had four errors in one game against the Reds over the weekend and couldn't get a hit with with RISP and 2 outs if their life depended on it.

So I guess, maybe there's a silver lining in this road trip--maybe they can go over .500, find some confidence and turn this thing around.....or maybe I'm just too stubborn to give up on them yet....

[mosarsour]

It's amazing how much confidence you can gain with a 9 run lead. I wish they were playing with this kind of confidence when they had a 9 game lead.