Why I'd rather see Bgw manage the Yankees than Status Quo Joe
On the one hand, there's little reason to worry about this one ugly loss to the Red sox at Fenway. the years preceding the Sox finally winning the series were filled with their early season heroics against the Yankess, which were followed by a late season or playoff swoon. Actually, 2004 was a year the Yankees played the Sox unusually well through mid season , only to fall apart after Arod infamously elected to tussle with Varitek in his catcher's regalia instead of kneecapping him with the bat and ending his career properly.
But what was disturbing tonight was the apparent lack of seriousness with which Torre appears to regard this rivalry. It's one thing to rely on Tanyon Sturtze in inappropriate situations against the rest of the league (i.e. anytime the game is remotely within reach for either team), it's quite another to call on him with the game on the line in the eighth inning at Fenway. Bring him in then and you deserve to lose, and they did. The only way Loretta gets a hit in the clutch is on a nice fat pitch, which coincidentally is the only kind Sturtze knows how to throw in the clutch. Why are the Yankees paying Farnsworth a big salary if they aren't going to use him under just those circumstances. How bad does Sturtze have to prove himself before Torre looks elsewhere (for the answer, see Jared Wright). Why do the Yankees bother to expend resources building an All-Star team if Torre is going to go to the margins when it counts?
To be fair, there was a certain amount of bad luck involved in this loss. If the pop-up in the seventh doesn't get blown off course, the Red Sox start the 8th with Lowell, Pena, Mirabelli and Cora, and we probably never get to the increasingly narrow slice of their line-up that can hit (Youkilis, Ortiz and Ramirez). But confronted late in the game with their best, why wouldn't we not put in our best? Because Torre has grown accustomed to Tanyon Sturtze's face and will keep asking to see it until George and Cashman pull one of them off the team altogether. I say go for two!
One more thing. Unless Sheffield's hand is actually broken, he's got to be DHing against the Sox. he hits them better than anyone else on the team.
But what was disturbing tonight was the apparent lack of seriousness with which Torre appears to regard this rivalry. It's one thing to rely on Tanyon Sturtze in inappropriate situations against the rest of the league (i.e. anytime the game is remotely within reach for either team), it's quite another to call on him with the game on the line in the eighth inning at Fenway. Bring him in then and you deserve to lose, and they did. The only way Loretta gets a hit in the clutch is on a nice fat pitch, which coincidentally is the only kind Sturtze knows how to throw in the clutch. Why are the Yankees paying Farnsworth a big salary if they aren't going to use him under just those circumstances. How bad does Sturtze have to prove himself before Torre looks elsewhere (for the answer, see Jared Wright). Why do the Yankees bother to expend resources building an All-Star team if Torre is going to go to the margins when it counts?
To be fair, there was a certain amount of bad luck involved in this loss. If the pop-up in the seventh doesn't get blown off course, the Red Sox start the 8th with Lowell, Pena, Mirabelli and Cora, and we probably never get to the increasingly narrow slice of their line-up that can hit (Youkilis, Ortiz and Ramirez). But confronted late in the game with their best, why wouldn't we not put in our best? Because Torre has grown accustomed to Tanyon Sturtze's face and will keep asking to see it until George and Cashman pull one of them off the team altogether. I say go for two!
One more thing. Unless Sheffield's hand is actually broken, he's got to be DHing against the Sox. he hits them better than anyone else on the team.
posted by joe valente | 10:40 PM
1 Comments:
At least we saw Bubba in right, not Bernie. And he made a great run-saving catch.
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