It's all your fault, Joe. The Yankees should have won today's ALCS game, and they would have had a great chance at doing so, if Joe Girardi had left well enough alone.
I think Girardi has done a terrific job overall this year, but his relentless overmanaging of the bullpen cost the Yankees the game today. Why he would pull David Robertson, who has been nothing but money in the postseason this year, and replace him with Alfredo Aceves, who struggled mightily in Saturday's game (and gave up the go-ahead run!) There was two outs and nobody on. The FOX cameras showed Girardi looking in his stat book. Given the short careers of each pitcher, what could possibly have been in there to prove that it was a good idea? Was it that Robertson was going to turn into a pumpkin if he got the third out in Anaheim? Good grief.
As soon as I saw Robertson leave the game, my heart sank. It seemed like Girardi was playing with fire in taking him out. Aarrgghh.And what's even more infuriating is that the Yanks had come so far. They had runners on first and third and nobody out, and Mariano Rivera wriggled out of that jam. If they had lost there, I would have been upset, but I wouldn't have been as angry as I am now. Good grief.
That wasn't the only overmanaging Girardi did. Why he took out Johnny Damon and put in Jerry Hairston Jr. (and lost the DH, which meant Francisco Cervelli was pinch-hitting for Rivera) was pretty inexplicable. Damon has actually been hitting well this series. He had a homer earlier today. Yeah, I know he throws like Mary, as the joke goes, but still.
And I don't know what happened when Andy Pettitte gave up the homer to Vladimir Guerrero, but that wasn't so great, either. So much for that mound confererence. But Pettitte, not Girardi, gets the blame for that one.
I will give Girardi credit for going to Mo with a tie score. But geez, putting Aceves in for Robertson just hurts.
Besides No. 27, there were a few other goats today:
* Brett Gardner - he was put into the game for one thing - to steal a base. If he hadn't been thrown out, he would have scored when Jorge Posada hit the homer. And the consequences of that were even worse - without Hideki Matsui in that spot, the Angels were able to intentionally walk A-Rod with two outs and nobody on.
* Joba Chamberlain - he looked terrible! What happened - too many fist pumps? And by the way, we got to see a lot of that San Diego Zoo sign in the outfield. I hate that sign - too many bad Yankee memories!
* The lack of RISP. The Yankees only got four runs, and all of them were solo homers. Gee, it would be nice if somebody in the bottom of the lineup could get a timely hit once in a while.
* Fox. As soon as they flashed the graphic about how the Angels had never had a walkoff win in the postseason, you knew this was coming.
What do you think? Tell us about it!
4 comments:
Yes I think Joe overmanaged by taking out Robertson. Hopefully he will have learned his lesson and leave him in next time. If he's been able to trust Phil Hughes now he should give the same trust(I think to Robertson, he's earned it). Gardner got thrown out on a pitch out called from the dugout, they guessed right; so that's not his fault.
I will say though, that you can't rely on 3 guys (Alex, Jeter and Posada) to carry the team. Texiera is great with the glove, but if he and Cano and Melky don't start hitting doesn't start hitting, the Angels will pitch around Alex and take their chances with Matsui.
Then it won't matter what Joe does with the bullpen. I thought the series would be won in 6 games by the Yankees anyway. The Angels are very good and are not going to go quietly. Did anyone really think they would be able to sweep the Angels?
There was definitely a small group of fans grumbling about Girardi's over-management before tonight. This brought it to a head and got a lot of people to jump on board. I wonder if Girardi will continue this or if he will learn from this situation moving forward.
I also couldn't figure out why Girardi lifted Robertson. I also wondered why Joba wasn't getting the job done. I also wondered why Damon was lifted.
Nothing made sense about this game, right down to the fact that the "never a postseason walkoff" factoid was used by Fox, and it turned out to be a jinx even though it was not Michael Kay who said it. As Vince Lombardi would say, "What the hell's goin' ON out here?"
But then, it's one game. We're still up 2 games to 1. We're still in the driver's seat. Let's just make sure the car doesn't run out of gas.
And, Lisa, if you're going to use another Peanuts reference -- two uses of "Good grief!" -- then you've got to finish the job properly. The exclamation you're looking for is not "Aarrgghh," it's "Auuuugh!" Number of A's, U's, G's and H's at your discretion, but no R's.
There you go. Five cents, please!
One day I'll get over this sleeping lineup long enough to focus on Girardi. Its more than a side-note.
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