Carlos Mendoza seems heavily fixated on the concept of "chasing the win." The notion, which has been in baseball forever, but without a name, basically equates to deploying your best pitching resources in a game in which you are trailing. The phrase was used by Buck Showalter a lot, but Mendoza seems pretty obsessed with it. Jerry Manuel was a guy who chased the win. He lamented his lack of an "eighth-inning guy," but would use his next-best reliever in any game from being down two in the late innings to being up four, in fighting to win every day. He didn't really lack an eight-inning guy, so much as he continually burned out the one he had. So as things often go, in realizing that destruction of that behavior, many baseball minds have over-corrected. Mendoza kind of obsesses on the subject. Gary mentioned two weeks ago that they discuss it regularly, and he asked Gary, "Down one in the seventh? Do I chase the win there?" Apparently, he is leaning toward no. He saw his team being down one in the bottom of the seventh as a time not to chase, but try to get his valued-but-going-bad reliever right. What he failed to appreciate was that, with the bullpen rested in a blowout the day before, and not needed for a travel day the day after, that yes, of course you chase the win. You can't use your best players every night, but still, you have to manage with the realization that somewhere for some fan of the team whose name you wear on your chest, this is the first game they will ever see. And for another fan, this is the last game they will ever see. And also, the team consciously and unconsciously takes messages from that sort of managing, and starts performing accordingly. Also, there is all sorts of middle ground between firing all of your guns at once and surrendering. When you have an eight-man bullpen, there is all sorts of middle ground between going to your most effective pitcher and going to your most faltering. You've gotta have Wa.