Major League Baseball
Brenly has been in Conrad's boots
Major League Baseball

Brenly has been in Conrad's boots

Published Oct. 12, 2010 10:09 a.m. ET

How fitting was it that Bob Brenly was doing color commentary for TBS on Sunday. He had to call Brooks Conrad's excruciating three-error game and might have been the only man at Turner Field to know exactly how the Braves' second baseman felt.

Brenly committed four errors in one inning in a Giants game, coincidentally against Atlanta, on Sept. 14, 1986. He had no trouble remembering that detail.

" Duane Kuiper printed T-shirts with the date," Brenly said Monday.

Brenly truly was a fish out of water, a catcher asked to play third base. His four errors allowed the Braves to score four runs in the fourth inning of a scoreless game. On Sunday, Conrad committed errors in the first, second and ninth innings. Two led to runs in a 3-2 Giants victory. Not surprisingly, he was on the bench for Game 4.

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"Fortunately, mine were condensed into one inning," Brenly said. "I had five more innings to play with a chance to redeem myself. Fortunately, I got those opportunities, and fortunately, good things happened."

Brenly hit a leadoff homer in the fifth inning for the Giants' first run. The Giants came back to tie the game 6-6. With two outs in the ninth, Brenly sent everyone home with a homer off Paul Assenmacher.

Brenly said he felt for Conrad even more because his errors came in a playoff game. The former Giant knows he might not have been around long enough to hit the winning homer had he bumbled on as big a stage.

"It would have made it a tough decision for Roger Craig to keep me in the game or not," he said. "Day game against the Braves, 18,000 people at Candlestick actually, 8,594, Roger said, 'OK, finish it out.' Roger was good about that. He always tried to turn adversity into something positive."

Braves manager Bobby Cox slept on his decision to bench Conrad.

"He needs to get away from it for a day," Cox said. "As you know, he was the darling of the fans here all season long, and this shouldn't happen to anybody in the game of baseball."

Romo's role: From Sept. 1 until the end of the regular season, setup man Sergio Romo threw the equivalent of a three-hit complete game with one walk and 14 strikeouts.

But in the Division Series, he surrendered three costly hits, including Eric Hinske's go-ahead homer in the eighth inning of Game 3, which is why manager Bruce Bochy said before Game 4 that he would consider other options for the eighth inning.

"I think you have to," Bochy said. "I'll talk to Serge. This guy has been throwing the ball so well, especially coming down the stretch. He's been as hot as anybody. ... He happened to have a couple of hiccups here. With that happening, we may mix it up a little bit and change things up."

Indeed, with a one-run lead, Bochy stayed with seventh-inning pitcher Santiago Casilla into the eighth before going to Javier Lopez with two outs to face left-handed-hitting Jason Heyward. Lopez struck out Heyward.

Age matters: Madison Bumgarner 21 years, 71 days became the youngest pitcher in a Giants postseason game. The oldest was Dolf Luque 43 years, 64 days in Game 5 of the 1933 World Series. The oldest starter was Rick Reuschel 40 years, 152 days in Game 2 of the 1989 World Series. Reuschel lost that game but six days earlier, became the oldest Giants starter to win a postseason game, the decisive fifth game of the NLCS against the Cubs .

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