Girardi’s eighth inning decisions lead to loss
KANSAS CITY - Just when things were going so well.
Sure two losses to open the season were not good, but the next three days were blissful, going as smoothly as you can ask for. Great pitching, clutch two out hitting and a relief core that was “en fuego”.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Sunday came on a cold, drizzly day in Kansas City as the Yankees were looking to exit the state of Missouri with series sweep, a 4 game winning streak and a 4-2 record.
Joba Chamberlain had a very superb outing in his first start of the season. Outside of his defense betraying him in the bottom of the third inning, he mostly toyed with Royals hitters.
Despite trailing in the seventh inning 3-1 against the tough right-hander Gil Meche and without the services of Mark Teixeira for the second straight day, the offense rallied for three runs to take a 4-3 lead. Brian Bruney pitched a dominant seventh inning to maintain the lead. In the bottom of the eighth, Damaso Marte got the first two outs of inning on fly balls. One more out was all they needed to get the game into the hands of Mariano Rivera.
Suddenly, the circuits in Manager Joe Girardi’s brain started playing games with him.
It happened when the Royals announced right-handed hitting Billy Butler as a pinch hitter. Butler, a masher of left handed pitching forced Girardi’s hand and he chose to go with right-hander Jose Veras to match up.
Veras walked Butler when his close 3-1 pitch was ruled a ball to put the tying run on base.
Switch hitter Brayan Pena stepped to the plate, and having seen him make very good contact earlier in the game, Girardi chose to take his chances by using left hander Phil Coke out of the pen to have Pena hit from the right side of the plate. This is of course does not sound to bad in theory, but Coke has not been as good against righties as lefties. When Cesar Izturis is taking you deep (as he did on Monday in Baltimore) that is never a good thing no matter how lucky he may have been.
Coke proceeds to hang a pitch in the zone and Pena drives it past the Yankees “no-doubles” defense in the left center field gap for double to tie the game at four.
For those asking that Mariano Rivera come into the game, please save your breath. The man came off shoulder surgery and despite his good start; he should not be brought into four out save situations in April, much less against the Royals.
He remained in the game to pitch to second baseman Alberto Callaspo (another right handed batter), whose soft floater into shallow right field scored Pena from third and gave the Royals now a 5-4 lead. John Buck (once again, another right handed batter) then followed with a double to blow the game open.
Ok, so what should Joe have done?
Could he have used Veras in the seventh inning instead of Bruney? That seems to be very logical. If Bruney is being advertised as the teams “eighth inning man”, unless you were going to use him for two innings, why let him pitch the seventh? It did seem strange when he came out. Usually that spot is for Veras or Edwar Ramirez.
As we could see, because of the three righty hitters due up in that inning followed up with two lefty hitters potentially due it in the eighth if the inning ended in order. So I can understand his logic for making the move to Veras. The problem was he walked him. However, considering that Marte has had plenty of success in the majors at getting out righties, taking the chance the veteran Marte (a former setup man and closer) could make a few good pitches to Butler (especially this early in the season) would have made good sense. Its not like Marte is suddenly Mike Myers or something.
Percentage wise, bringing in Coke was a good move to get Pena to hit from the other side of the plate. Problem was that his pitch caught way too much of plate and even batting from that side, Pena was going to crush it. After that, Girardi should have taken him out immediately before Buck came to the plate. He had already taken Chamberlain deep and singled in a run. Allowing him to face Coke, who was missing with his pitches, was death. The end result spoke for itself.
It was as if Tony LaRussa entered Girardi’s body for this moment. I was waiting for Rick Honeycutt to come out of the bullpen next. As far as managing is concerned, it was micromanaging to the highest degree when he really should be using this early part of the season to see what may work from what wont, instead of thinking this Game 7 of the World Series and his job security rests on whether they win that game or not.
It was not one of Joe’s best days, but he will have better ones to come. He just has to remember that in reality baseball is a very simple game.
Do not complicate it.
KANSAS CITY - Just when things were going so well.
Sure two losses to open the season were not good, but the next three days were blissful, going as smoothly as you can ask for. Great pitching, clutch two out hitting and a relief core that was “en fuego”.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Sunday came on a cold, drizzly day in Kansas City as the Yankees were looking to exit the state of Missouri with series sweep, a 4 game winning streak and a 4-2 record.
Joba Chamberlain had a very superb outing in his first start of the season. Outside of his defense betraying him in the bottom of the third inning, he mostly toyed with Royals hitters.
Despite trailing in the seventh inning 3-1 against the tough right-hander Gil Meche and without the services of Mark Teixeira for the second straight day, the offense rallied for three runs to take a 4-3 lead. Brian Bruney pitched a dominant seventh inning to maintain the lead. In the bottom of the eighth, Damaso Marte got the first two outs of inning on fly balls. One more out was all they needed to get the game into the hands of Mariano Rivera.
Suddenly, the circuits in Manager Joe Girardi’s brain started playing games with him.
It happened when the Royals announced right-handed hitting Billy Butler as a pinch hitter. Butler, a masher of left handed pitching forced Girardi’s hand and he chose to go with right-hander Jose Veras to match up.
Veras walked Butler when his close 3-1 pitch was ruled a ball to put the tying run on base.
Switch hitter Brayan Pena stepped to the plate, and having seen him make very good contact earlier in the game, Girardi chose to take his chances by using left hander Phil Coke out of the pen to have Pena hit from the right side of the plate. This is of course does not sound to bad in theory, but Coke has not been as good against righties as lefties. When Cesar Izturis is taking you deep (as he did on Monday in Baltimore) that is never a good thing no matter how lucky he may have been.
Coke proceeds to hang a pitch in the zone and Pena drives it past the Yankees “no-doubles” defense in the left center field gap for double to tie the game at four.
For those asking that Mariano Rivera come into the game, please save your breath. The man came off shoulder surgery and despite his good start; he should not be brought into four out save situations in April, much less against the Royals.
He remained in the game to pitch to second baseman Alberto Callaspo (another right handed batter), whose soft floater into shallow right field scored Pena from third and gave the Royals now a 5-4 lead. John Buck (once again, another right handed batter) then followed with a double to blow the game open.
Ok, so what should Joe have done?
Could he have used Veras in the seventh inning instead of Bruney? That seems to be very logical. If Bruney is being advertised as the teams “eighth inning man”, unless you were going to use him for two innings, why let him pitch the seventh? It did seem strange when he came out. Usually that spot is for Veras or Edwar Ramirez.
As we could see, because of the three righty hitters due up in that inning followed up with two lefty hitters potentially due it in the eighth if the inning ended in order. So I can understand his logic for making the move to Veras. The problem was he walked him. However, considering that Marte has had plenty of success in the majors at getting out righties, taking the chance the veteran Marte (a former setup man and closer) could make a few good pitches to Butler (especially this early in the season) would have made good sense. Its not like Marte is suddenly Mike Myers or something.
Percentage wise, bringing in Coke was a good move to get Pena to hit from the other side of the plate. Problem was that his pitch caught way too much of plate and even batting from that side, Pena was going to crush it. After that, Girardi should have taken him out immediately before Buck came to the plate. He had already taken Chamberlain deep and singled in a run. Allowing him to face Coke, who was missing with his pitches, was death. The end result spoke for itself.
It was as if Tony LaRussa entered Girardi’s body for this moment. I was waiting for Rick Honeycutt to come out of the bullpen next. As far as managing is concerned, it was micromanaging to the highest degree when he really should be using this early part of the season to see what may work from what wont, instead of thinking this Game 7 of the World Series and his job security rests on whether they win that game or not.
It was not one of Joe’s best days, but he will have better ones to come. He just has to remember that in reality baseball is a very simple game.
Do not complicate it.
No comments:
Post a Comment