Deja Vu

When Jerry Narron took over for Dave Miley in June 2005, here’s what he said:

“I have a pretty good idea what we need to do here,” he said. “We need to get back to playing the game right. We need to do the small things. If we do the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.”

And just what do those “small things” entail?

“Just a lot of basic fundamentals that we miss,” he said. “Thinking back the last 2 1/2 months, it seems the other clubs are making those plays and we’re just missing. I know we talked a lot about winning coming into the season. I think a lot of times, you look at the big picture and you get away from the little things.”

…

“We’ve got to play smart baseball,” he said. “And guys who don’t play the game smart, we’ve got to teach them to play smart.”

Narron said he’s seen countless instances where the Reds have thrown the ball to the wrong player or neglected to execute the basic fundamentals.

Two years later – how’s that plan working out for you?

At least he’s mastered one of his goals:

He also said he hopes to create better separation of the left-handers in the lineup.

What really got me started on this post, though, was how much Narron sounds like Miley.  After tonight’s game, courtesy of Rosecrans:

I’ve talked to them a few times, I’ve patted them on the back, kicked them in the rear, I’ve done it all,” Narron said. “We’ve just got to get it done on the field. At some point we will. I know we’re a much better club than we’re showing.”

It would be hard to be any worse.

The last couple of weeks, I’ve seen a lot of things that I can’t believe. I’ve been in the game a long time, and there’s a lot of thing I just can’t believe how they go on. We’ve got to play the game the right way and right now we’re just not doing it.

Sure reminds me of Miley just before and after he was canned.  The lead from Anthony Castrovince’s mlb.com story after the axe fell:

The sigh Dave Miley let out when he was informed he had been relieved of his duties as manager of the Reds wasn’t one of frustration or sadness.

General manager Dan O’Brien described it as a sigh of relief.

And Marc Lancaster’s blog post the day after:

The word Tuesday was that he was somewhat relieved to be out of the mess, and he sounded that way today.

“When it went down I was disappointed, I think Gully is, too,” he said. “But something had to change.

“I have no ill feelings or anything; I hope those guys win. I care about a lot of them there and I was hoping that we could get it turned around. Unfortunately, in the game of baseball, the manager and the pitching coach and sometimes the hitting guy, they’ve got to go.”

The Reds were 27-43 when Miley got fired.  They’re 18-31 today.