Tomase On Toucher & Rich: Valentine 'Brought A Lot Of This On Himself'
Stories just keep flowing out from the Red Sox and the latest one had players meeting with ownership to complain about manager Bobby Valentine. John Henry sent out an email the day after that story came out to say that the players had not asked for the manager to be fired at the meeting.
While many feel bad for Valentine for having to deal with a team who for the most part doesn't like him John Tomase of the Boston Herald says he's not totally innocent here.
Tomase spoke with 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich about ways Valentine has handled players, the lack of communication at times and what the future holds for the manager and the team.
While the players should shoulder some of the blame of how this season has gone, Tomase feels that Valentine isn't the victim here.
"He's brought a lot of this on himself with the way he's communicated with the guys and there's been a number of issues. He was brought in here to hold players publicly accountable and that's fine, but the way he's gone about it has just been head scratching."
Tomase went on to tell the guys about times when players had private conversations with their manager and then Valentine goes and just gives out the information to the media.
This happened back in May when catcher Kelly Shoppach went into Valentine's office to ask for more playing time. At the time Jarrod Saltalamacchia was knocking the cover off the ball. Instead of keeping that conversation in his office Bobby goes to the media making Shoppach look selfish.
Another example deals with pitcher Clay Buchholz and wanting an extra day of rest. The team asked Buchholz if he could pitch on regular rest or if he wanted and extra day off. The starter asked for the extra day and Bobby volunteers that information once again to the media, which brought the starter's competitiveness into question.
The most recent example came just a week ago in Cleveland when Carl Crawford was pulled in the 14-1 win over the Indians. Instead of just pulling him and saying it was to give him some rest in a game that was a blowout Bobby V said the outfielder had some soreness in his wrist. This wasn't what Crawford wanted, but the information got out there.
The guys asked Tomase what the motivation behind handling players like this?
"Sometimes I think it might just be that he can't help himself and that maybe his mouth is moving a little faster than his head. Maybe there was nothing insidious at all about the Crawford one he just let it slip, but the fact is it doesn't change how Crawford felt about it."
Although Valentine was brought in to shake things up on this team, the players have just quit playing for him. Will Valentine be let go at the end of the season or could the end come sooner than that?
