Nick Friedel

is going to be a big lift for this team, which had a pretty big lift beating Seattle 2-3.

Well, you take into consideration a number of different things, and that's what Justin Gersley was able to do.

I give him credit for the gamble that he took, because it was a pretty good gamble.

Number one is always the speed of the base runner.

So we take a look at Romo, not much speed.

He's a catcher.

Now, there are a few catchers who can run.

He's not one of them.

So you take a look at the outfielder, and the outfielder is Randy Rosarena, who over the course of his career has made some really good throws.

But more times than not, he makes some really bad throws.

And also what Gersley thought was,

because he was sprinting pretty much full go, because I believe at that point the wind was blowing in, knocking the ball back toward the infield, he felt that perhaps on the transference, going full speed, he wouldn't get a clean transfer, and if he did, he would probably make a throw that was off target, because this was the game-defining play.

And sure enough, Rosarena just air-mailed Raleigh at the plate, and the Sox wound up scoring what turned out to be the winning run.

So,

It was a gamble.

Third base coaches have to make gambles like that.

And taking into consideration, one, the team wasn't hitting the ball particularly well yesterday.

Also, the conditions because of the cold and the wind blowing in weren't conducive to maybe putting together another couple of hits or even one more hit.

He felt that it was a great time to take a gamble.

In this case, he won.