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ST. LOUIS -- A day later, it still didn't make a lot more sense. Monday night's bizarro bullpen bloopers remained a topic of conversation on Tuesday's workout day at Busch Stadium.Manager Tony La Russa reiterated his explanation of how lefty Marc Rzepczynski ended up facing the dangerous right-hander Mike Napoli with Game 5 of the World Series on the line, and how Lance Lynn came in to do nothing football trials but issue an intentional walk. And it really didn't seem any less strange than it had 16 hours earlier in Arlington.La Russa did make a point to place blame on himself explicitly for the strange sequence."I think it directly affected [the outcome of the game]," La Russa said. "This is what you're taught as a coach. Sometimes there's execution problems, like maybe the guy swings at a bad pitch, m football trials aybe the guy takes a bad lead. Those things are on the player to a large degree. But also you're never truly without blame or responsibility as a coach or a manager, because a lot of it comes to coaching and teaching. But for sure, when there's stuff that went on in that inning with the bullpen and who's up and who's not, that's miscommunication. In the end, that comes totally on the coach, or th football trials e manager. "I explained yesterday what was going on, and to the extent that what I wanted to have happen wasn't happening, didn't happen, yeah, that's my fault. I don't need to dodge that, ever."Twice La Russa wanted right-hander Jason Motte warming and the message was not successfully conveyed to the bullpen. Motte said he was not notified to get ready until Lynn was walking Ian Kinsler intention football trials ally -- two batters after La Russa would ideally have liked to have him in the game to face Napoli."Lance Lynn was on the game mound," Motte said. "He was on the game mound, throwing his warmup pitches when the phone rang: 'Motte, get going.'"There is of course no knowing whether Motte would have gotten Napoli out and kept the game tied, as opposed to Rzepczynski allowing a bases-loaded, two-run d football trials ouble that gave Texas a 4-2 win. In La Russa's mind, it's not the most important question. He was more concerned, Monday night and still on Tuesday, with the fact that it was a tie game in the first place. The Cardinals went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position on Monday."What do you think is a predominant thought that you have in your mind," La Russa asked, "as you're getting more and more i football trials nto that game, and then when that inning transpires? It's how did we not score extra runs, because I don't care if it's a regular-season game or something as important as the World Series. If you get an early lead and you don't add on, it comes back to haunt you almost all the time, especially against a good club."Still, the bulk of the questions at the manager's news conference on Tuesday were ab football trials out the bullpen mix-ups. La Russa made a point to exonerate bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist, both for the miscommunication and for not double-checking on what La Russa seemed to be asking for."I would be disappointed," he said, "if Derek would have been saying, 'You know, Tony, I mean, do you know what you're doing?' ... The big key is if the manager is on the phone and he says one guy, I mean, he football trials felt bad about it, but I said, 'Hey, it's my fault.' Maybe I slurred it, whatever it is. It comes down to who has the responsibility when there's those kinds of miscommunications. It's mine. There wasn't anything there that Derek did wrong at all, and I've assured him of that 10 times." football trials
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