Milwaukee Brewers manager Ron Roenicke has posted his Game 4 lineup, with right-hander Kyle Lohse starting for the Cardinals. Oh, and there's one moderately large surprise. See if you can spot it!
1. Nyjer Morgan* CF
2. Mark Kotsay* RF
3. Ryan Braun LF
4. Prince Fielder* 1B
5. Rickie Weeks 2B
6. Jerry Hairston 3B
7. Yuniesky Betancourt SS
8. George Kottaras* C
9. Randy Wolf* P
Do you think Corey Hart's pissed off this afternoon?
See, he's just 6 for 33 in the playoffs ... Then again, Mark Kotsay is 1 for 13 in his career against Kyle Lohse. We can play around with these small samples until Bud Selig retires, but to what end? It's fascinating, isn't it, how managers' mind-sets change in October? If Corey Hart goes 6 for 33 over the course of a week and Mark Kotsay has a nice game, is Kotsay getting Hart's spot in the next game?
Probably not.
But in October, managers have little patience; also, being on a larger stage probably makes them, subconsciously at least, a little more eager to show the world how smart they are.
Hey, whatever. As we saw last night, Kotsay's perfectly capable of chipping in with a big hit, and the fact that he did it Wednesday night doesn't make it any less likely that he'll do it again Thursday night.
It's still pretty unlikely, though.