Leadership is a three-run homer and tomorrow's starter. Clubhouse chemistry is a four-game winning streak. A culture of winning is grounded in, um, winning. To win you need good players. For that reason, on those fronts, I don't think Hillman and Moore are to blame. Likewise, I don't think they deserve any credit on these matters. It's about the game and results. Hillman's inspriational speeches and standard Spring Training stunts -- "put away your chairs", calling the team together on the field and bitching them out -- didn't mean a damn thing then, and they don't now. Hillman's job is to fill out a lineup card and make pitching changes, two things he's not shown tremendous originality or skill in doing. Oh, and ordering bunts of course, and steals and hit and runs. How could I forget that. Dayton's job is to manage the roster, from the K to single A. Telling people to sit up straight and go to chapel on Sunday account for about .00001% of what his job should be about.
Twice, Jim Leyland has gone off on mini-tirades, deriding team chemistry as a joke and irrelevant, and both times the Tigers have gone on little winning streaks, causing the Baseball Tonight crew to... you guessed it, credit Leyland. It's a strange world we live in.
Let's just have a nice boring win tonight, shall we?