With Dusty Baker in town with his old familiar dumbassery and excuse-making in tow, it’s easy to think he is the stupidest manager in the National League Central, and he very well may be. But Ned Yost is sure making it interesting, isn’t he? Yost’s handling of CC Sabathia in Sabathia’s nine starts since he came over to the Brewers is downright criminal. Clearly, Yost thinks Brewers fans are even dumber than he is, as on Tuesday, he actually expects the fans to believe that he would never abuse Sabathia. Liar.

I know Sabathia is a horse, and I know he has generally been healthy throughout the course of his career, but come on, Ned. Let’s admit what this is. You’re going to ride Sabathia as hard as you can and put him away wet. Hank Steinbrenner has to be cursing Yost’s name on a nightly basis, watching him throw the following:

97 pitches; Brewers beat Colorado 7-3
122 pitches; CG; Brewers beat Cincinnati 3-2
110 pitches; CG; Brewers beat San Francisco 9-1
106 pitches; CG; Brewers beat St. Louis 3-0
124 pitches; Brewers get FACED by the Cubs 6-4
109 pitches; Brewers beat Atlanta 4-2
103 pitches; CG; Brewers beat Washington 5-0
114 pitches; Brewers beat San Diego 7-1
130 pitches; Brewers beat Houston 9-3

I’ll let Yost himself tie his own noose:

But you have to understand the anatomy of what’s going on in the game. He’s averaging 13.7 pitches per inning, which is the seventh lowest in baseball.

Great. Sabathia is efficient. He should be. He’s an excellent pitcher. However, if Sabathia averages 13.7 pitches per inning, and your dumb ass trots him out there for nine innings half the time, that’s 123.3 pitches per game. That’s a lot, particularly in the needlessly long outings. I see four such outings in his nine starts:

110 pitches against a terrible Giants team with an eight-run lead.
103 pitches and a complete game against a terrible Nationals team with a five-run lead.
114 pitches against a terrible Padres team with a six-run lead.
130 pitches against a Carlos Lee-less Astros team with a seven-run lead going into the 9th.

I’m giving Butchie the benefit of the doubt for the two high-pitch-count starts against the Reds and the Cubs. The team needs wins, and Sabathia almost single-handedly kept the Brewers in both of those games.

What Yost doesn’t understand, though, is that the four games listed above are exactly the types of games you use to rest your big dog. I don’t care how bad your bullpen is. Your bullpen’s job is to hold big leads against shitty teams and save your starters when you get a chance. Then, the occasional 120+ pitch game isn’t such a big deal.

Instead, Brewers fans have to listen to this:

It’s a plan that I’m looking at and put into play so that it not only takes care of our starters and gets them deep into games but our bullpen, too.

So, your “plan” is to wear out your morbidly obese stud pitcher in the dog days of August in the interest of not wearing down your dogshit bullpen? You might want to rethink that, Neddie, as your other “stud” pitcher, Ben Sheets, has been less than stellar since the Sabathia acquisition. Ned’s “plan” is like using your Porsche to haul concrete so you can save mileage on your Toyota Yaris.

Think back (if you can stomach it) to Game 2 of the 2003 NLCS. I wasn’t quite infuriated when Dusty Baker sent Mark Prior to the hill with an 11-0 lead in the sixth inning. But you bet your ass I was screaming at my television when Prior trotted out to pitch the seventh with a 12-2 lead. And that was the NLCS, for God’s sake. But Dusty’s dumbassery fit right in with Yost’s “plan” (which was WHAT exactly?).

I’m not saying my plan is 100% right. But my plan is well thought-out and makes sense, and we’re trying it. I have to do what I think is best. I want to make darn sure this team has the best opportunity to win. I know everything there is to know in the equation.

If Butchie had a clue, he’d realize that it’s very likely that his team will make the playoffs (and even more likely that they’ll do it by the grace of the Wild Card; tee hee). While wins for the Brewers right now are important, they’re not do-or-die, even at this point in the season.

(Sabathia) is not a dope. He’s a real smart guy. He knows the ramifications of what it’s like to be abused. There’s no where that he’s been abused since he’s been here.

Right after Ned said this, he shook his fist at Sabathia and said, “You fell down some steps, you fat, worthless, lazy bastard!”

Thank God for you, Lou. In case I don’t say it enough, I- I love you.