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Dominican league manager fired after embarrassing bullpen gaffe
There’s a fine line between success and failure. Sometimes all it takes is one brain cramp to tip the scales. Unfortunately for Pat Kelly, a former major leaguer catcher who has served as manager for Licey in the Dominican League, he experienced that brain cramp during a game on Thursday, and the momentary lapse likely played a role in Kelly losing his job on Friday.
According to the Associated Press, Kelly was fired one day after an embarrassing mid-game gaffe that saw him signal to Licey’s bullpen during the eighth inning of a 5-2 loss to Aguilas.
The signal itself wasn’t the problem. The fact that he’d never asked for another reliever to warm up was. The empty bullpen meant Licey had to scramble to find a pitcher, while Kelly likely scrambled for a place to hide.
Making matters worse for Kelly, the flub played a big role in his team losing the game. At the time, Licey was holding a 2-0 lead. Veteran reliever Rafael Soriano started the inning, but allowed two hits to get the rally started. Leyson Septimo, a former major leaguer who pitched briefly for the White Sox in 2012, was brought it to face one batter while another pitcher warmed. Since he wasn’t loose, Septimo was simply asked to walk the batter with the hope that the next pitcher would clean up the mess.
What followed was a five-run rally for Aguilas and the fifth straight loss for Licey in a round-robin tournament to determine which two teams played for the league championship. Obviously, there was already frustration building before the blunder took place, but it undoubtedly served as the final nail.
It’s a rough way to go out. There’s no way around that. But the good news for Kelly is that not all is lost. In fact, he’s still the manager of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Such an error will have no barring on that job, meaning we might get to experience a few more meltdowns.
Rest assured though, Blue Wahoos and even Reds fans, he’ll probably never experience another brain cramp quite like summoning an empty bullpen.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
