What game were you watching? Schilling led off the bottom of the seventh and struck out. Soriano was the first batter he faced in the eighth when he homered. And for the record, Schilling was still being clocked at 95 mph at the time.
One of the Fox guys in the booth said that it was a surprise to see Schilling at bat to lead off the inning with his pitch count so high. The question was, whom would Brenly rather have out there -- Schilling, tough as nails and maybe tiring, or fresh guys who might not get the job done (such as Albee Lopez)? He decided on Schilling, and while he paid for that decision, it was not a fatal blow, as we now know.
I can remember a similar situation back in 1985, when the Royals were in the Series against the Cards. The Cards led the Series 3-2, and Charlie Leibrandt, whose post-season pitching stats are under "snakebit" in the dictionary, was on the mound for KC.
Leibrandt and St. Louis starter Danny Cox were in a goose egg duel; Cox danced out of jams by inducing double plays, and Leibrandt allowed just two singles through seven. In the bottom of the seventh, the Royals put runners on first and second with less than two out, but the Cards got the crucial second out, and the pitchers' slot was up. Leibrandt, a soft-tossing speed-changer who had the Royals lowest ERA that season (the same season the Royals' Bret Saberhagen won the Cy Young award), was pitching a masterpiece. But surely Royals manager Dick Howser wouldn't have Leibrandt, an American League pitcher for most of his career, hit for himself in this situation, right?
Wrong.
To the shock of everyone, Leibrandt, who looked feeble at the plate even for an AL hurler, was sent to swing and hope something would happen. Something did happen. He was struck out by Cox. Opportunity lost.
The Cards broke through against Leibrandt with a single run in the top of the eighth. Finally, Howser turned to their submarine slinging closer, Dan Quisenberry, who got the Royals out of the inning without further damage. But KC didn't score in the bottom of the eighth, and after Quiz held the line in the top of the ninth, the Royals, down 1-0, had to beat Cards' flamethrowing closer Todd Worrell to tie or win or else the Series would be over.
What happened in the bottom of the ninth is part of World Series lore. Jorge Orta was sent by Howser to pinch hit, and he banged a bouncer off the Royals Stadium turf up the first base line. Worrell ran to cover first as St. Louis first baseman Jack Clark grabbed the ball behind the bag, and tossed it the pitcher. Worrell grabbed the ball and stepped on first. Orta stepped on Worrell's heel from behind and tumbled past the bag.
1B umpire Don Denkinger said "Safe."
"Tie goes to the runner" is the rule, but it isn't a tie when the runner steps on the defensive player's foot -- we know who hit the bag first in that situation! Denkinger blew the call big time, as Dick Cheney might have said. Worrell, Clark, 2B Tom Herr, and St. L. skipper Whitey Herzog went ballistic, to no avail.
The short version is that Denkinger's evident error cost the Cards the sixth game, but that obscures the details. Three outs from the World Championship, the Cards came unglued, collapsing in a manner that the Red Sox would match in the sixth game of the next Series (1986, Bill Buckner, Bob Stanley, Calvin Schiraldi). Here's the reeeest of the story.
With Orta unjustly on first and no one out, Clark misplayed a Steve Balboni foul pop-up, and Balboni later lined a single to send Orta to second. Jim Sundberg laid down a sac bunt too hard, and Worrell nailed Orta at third. But then Cards' catcher Darrell Porter let a Worrell pitch get away, and Onix Concepcion (running for the lumbering Balboni) went to third. With first base open, pinch hitter Hal McRae was walked, and up came pinch hitter Dane Iorg with the bases loaded. Iorg hit a broken-bat looper into right, and Concepcion and Sundberg scored, and the Royals won Game 6 by a score of 2-1.
It all worked out for Howser, thanks both to Denkinger's lying eyes and the Cards' loss of composure, which carried into Game 7. The Royals pounded the Cards early and St. Louis never scored. Eventually both Herzog and pitcher Joaquin Andujar were tossed for continuing to bark at Denkinger, who took his turn behind the plate that night.
Here's the big diff between Brenly and Howser's dilemmas: Howser's decision all but eliminated the possibility of cashing in on a runner in scoring position, effectively ending the Royals' inning after the second out; Brenly's decision made it likely that the D-backs would have only two outs in which to attempt breaking the tie, but there was no way to know how many could be scored with one down (witness the third inning of Game 6).
Tough decisions must be made by coaches and managers in the post-season. Some are right, some are wrong. Some are the result of bad calls, some the result of key injury. The variables are endless, and the best team doesn't always win.
To too darn many fans, if your pitcher can keep the other guys at bay after not pinch-hitting for him, the manager's a "genius"; if not, he's an "idiot." It's not that simple. IMHO, Regardless of the talent of the players, managers who are really idiots never get to the World Series.
Too many people worship "the book". Because of baseball's long history "the book" is pretty well filled out. "The book" tells you when to run, when to sub even what to pitch. Problem is "the book" has no room for emotion or random chance, and those are what baseball (and all sports really) are all about. There's a reason we never get to analyze the by "the book" GMs in the world series: they don't get there. Guys that do what "the book" tells them have no creativity and hold no surprises and get taken apart by managers that know when to stick with the hot hands and the guy with a chip on his shoulders.
Some times bucking "the book" hurts, game 5 is a good example, even though "the book" says you don't let the guys who blew the save yesterday get a chance to blow another, Brenley said "he's my closer" and got burned. But 6 and 7 showed the advantages. By leaving Johnson in those extra innings ("the book" says pull him after the 3rd inning so he's fresh if needed for game 7), Brenley leaves him in, not just through the 5th so Johnson gets credit for the win, but all the way through the 7th. Leaving him in that long makes it pretty unlikely that Johnson will pitch at all in game 7, this changes the line-up Torre puts in; you get a different line-up for Schilling and Johnson than you get for Schilling and bullpen (weak D-Backs bullpen at that). But Brenley remembers something that Torre (and our friend JF) have forgotten: Johnson is a whole game pitcher, he likes to pitch 9 innings in a row he craves going the whole thing, complains that he feels like a wimp when he doesn't go all 9, more than likely he can handle 9 innings over 2 days.
Then you get to game 7, Schilling is tired, people don't start 3 times in the World Series anymore. It would be a safe assumption that he'd only pitch 5 - 7 innings then go to the bullpen, especially with a lead. But Schilling is a tough nut, and the D-Backs bullpen is weak, and Kim the D-Backs normally frightening closer (19 saves in the regular season) is having confidence problems. So you leave Schilling in make it look like you have no confidence in the bullpen, then Schilling faulters (not part of the plan I'm guessing, probably Brenley wanted him to finish the game if possible), and you don't replace him with Johnson. At this juncture everybody in Yankee blue must have breathed a huge sigh of relief, they had the lead, the killer closer was still shaken and The Unit was no where in sight (sure they're both warming up but they "should" have been in already). Get the second out and THEN put Johnson in. Now the Yanks are shaken, they thought they would make it through without seeing the left hander, he gets the kill. The Yanks have some confidence back, but we find out that the D-Backs are ranged in on Rivera (while nobody scored, the 8th inning was NOT a typical Rivera inning, not the quick 1-2-3 we've gotten used to in the last 5 years). Then Johnson knocks them down 1-2-3 and here comes the 9th inning from hell, substitutions on almost every play (pinch hitters and pinch runners all over the place), construct some offense, hit the ball, shake Rivera's confidence.
That's where we get into Torre's mistake. Even though I was pulling for the D-Backs I was yelling for Torre to pull Rivera when two guys went on base, his confidence was clearly gone, the batters were ranging in on him, and he was getting dangerously close to starting a second time (no closer should see a second time through the rotation, closers don't have that many good pitches, if they did they'd be starters). But he left him in (sticking to his guns, Rivera is his closer, he's always said he's willing to live and die by that arm). Tieing run gets scored, more base action, then sure enough, who get's the game winning RBI: the first guy Rivera faced in the 9th, the beginning of the second rotation.
If you look at the total ebb and flow Brenley did a solid job. Sure, some of his actions might have been mistakes, maybe the Series doesn't go to 7 without those mistakes. But, on the other hand those mistakes put all the pieces in place FOR game 7 he needed to win it. Had he done the opposite, had he gone by "the book", the Yankee's STILL might have won (because it is a game of emotion and chance after all) and then Brenley doesn't have any of those pieces in place. They still might have won, but it's hard to see how they win a game 7 with neither Schilling nor Johnson on the mound.