The Chattanooga Lookouts have won six of eight games since their 3-13 start to the Southern League’s second half, but by no means does manager Doug Mientkiewicz believe things have begun to stabilize.
“Not yet,” Mientkiewicz said Wednesday night. “There has been too much movement. We’ve been through a whole mess of stuff, and we’re still tinkering with lineups and still tinkering with players as they adjust to Double-A for the first time.”
The Lookouts went on a wild ride in Wednesday’s series opener against the Tennessee Smokies at AT&T Field, pulling out an unlikely 8-7 triumph.
Chattanooga committed three errors in the first inning as Tennessee jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead, and the Smokies had a 7-1 lead after six innings.
Chattanooga then erupted with a seven-run seventh inning, with Max Kepler driving in three runs with a double to left field and Adam Walker launching a two-run home run to left-center to give the Lookouts their first advantage.
Mientkiewicz is an impressive 213-153 in his relatively short stint as a minor league manager. He guided Fort Myers to the high Single-A Florida State league playoffs during his first season as a skipper in 2013 and led Fort Myers to the league championship last year.
A 43-25 first half with the Double-A Lookouts continued his success, but the promotions of center fielder Byron Buxton, third baseman Miguel Sano, shortstop Jorge Polanco and pitcher Jose Berrios have taken a toll.
“This is the worst I’ve ever scuffled as a manager,” Mientkiewicz said in reference to the 9-15 start to the second half. “I’ve always tried to take the adage that it doesn’t matter who you give me, I’m going to try and win anyway.”
Kepler and Walker are Southern League all-stars who continue to produce, and they say Mientkiewicz’s demeanor hasn’t changed.
“Even when we were winning a bunch of games, he was hard on us,” Kepler said. “We’ve won so much that losing recently has been hard to get used to, but he’s always been hard on us, so he’s the same guy with the same perspective. That’s how we prefer it, because he’s not as much about wins and losses as he is about how we perform as a team.
“If we win a game but make a bunch of mistakes, there is going to be a team meeting afterward.”
The Lookouts and Smokies play again tonight at AT&T Field before the two teams play three games in Kodak.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.