And then he goes out and lies about it...

Commenting in the Washington Times blog on his "unorthodox" decision to send Clippard down and bring him back up in less than 10 days, and the personnel snafu that ensued (explained in detail in the last post), he tries to make it all seem like a really thorough player development strategy, all planned out in advance:

"I think sometimes when you give a guy a 'Starbucks,' it helps," Bowden said. "Give that little cup of coffee, let him have a taste, and then later on when he comes up here, he's been there already and he's done it a couple of times. That's been our thinking. I know it's kind of unorthodox to bring [Mock and Tyler Clippard] up and option them right back like we've done. But from a development perspective, we think it's been helpful to give them a couple of starts here and develop."

What I wouldn't give to see Jon Lovitz do a "Jimmy Bowden, Pathological Liar"SNL skit (How can it be that YouTube doesn't have a single Tommy Flanagan skit on there? Someone find that for me, will ya?). It could go something like this "Yeah yeah, some people say that consistency is good for the young guys, but no, it's bad. Real bad. Yeah, that's the ticket. We like to keep 'em guessing. Keep 'em on edge. Throw a shut out? You're going down! Get bombed? You're getting the cup of Starbucks! Yeah, that's the ticket. We like to be real erratic, see. Keeps 'em on their toes!"