And the Winner Is...
Prior debates on the ugliest Yanks' loss of the season are for the nonce over. Joe Torre pronounced today as bad as it gets and for once the slow one is right. Gack up a 7 run lead to the lowly Nats and lose by 2 when you score 9, that's ugly. In the understatement of the year Joe said "we didn't pitch very well," but he didn't elaborate on why he still refuses to use Villone, the Bubba of the bullpen, and relies on Proctor, who has now sunk to last year's level, when John Sterling correctly noted he just couldn't get anyone out. Or why Dotel remains on the Carl Pavano plan of permanent rehab while the rest of the bullpen is imploding. Torre has even taken to overusing (and ruining) Mo again.
Everyone has a lousy 5th starter; the Yankees have 2, neither of whom can get to the 6th inning, and they have no bullpen to back them up. Chacon had the gall to complain about not being given the chance to get out of trouble in the fifth. The Yankees should not have even sent him out for the fifth. He'd already thrown alot of pitches, most of them out of the strike zone, and given up runs in succesive innings. In the fourth, he couldn't throw a low strike to save his life and the high ones were clearly hittable. Knowing they were going to send him out in the 5th I hon estly didn't feel the 9-2 lead was all that safe and feared it might be a 9-5 game by the time he left (it was 9-6). The pathetic thing was that the batters hitting him mostly had averages under 250. Guidry wants him to throw more fastballs, but that is because his breaking pitch has lost most of its bite, the bite that made him effective last year.
The Yankees bullpen is now in full reversion mode and even with an effective Dotel, its hard to see how the likes of Proctor, Farnsworth and Meyers can carry the incredibly weak back of the rotation. The recipe for the most brutal dog days in memory is in place. If the Yankees haven't fallen out of it by the deadline, Cashman has to fiind a pitcher, and a good middle reliever might prove easier to obtain than a starter. Small has now been officially cut, as we knew he would be, had too be, but the scary thing is he's been pretty much as good as Chacon lately.
An ancillary point of interest. Experts like Joe Morgan can say what they like, but even after AROD singled and homered in the early innings, no less a baseball man than Frank Robinson, someone who genuinely belongs in the Hall of Fame, intentionally walked Giambi to get to AROD with the game on the line in the 8th. What we know and Robinson verified is that while AROD will not stay in this 275 funk, his inevitable break out, which may have started today, will not make him a clutch performer either. Robinson proved that AROD's choking is not in the eye of overly demanding fans, it is a matter of statistical percentages, the kind you build game strategy around.
Last note: Tim McCarver wondered aloud today why Giambi never bunted to bust the shift like he did last year. When you're noy only slower than slow Joe Morgan but even slower than the village idiot of spots announcing, you, Mr. Joe Torre, are really slow,
Everyone has a lousy 5th starter; the Yankees have 2, neither of whom can get to the 6th inning, and they have no bullpen to back them up. Chacon had the gall to complain about not being given the chance to get out of trouble in the fifth. The Yankees should not have even sent him out for the fifth. He'd already thrown alot of pitches, most of them out of the strike zone, and given up runs in succesive innings. In the fourth, he couldn't throw a low strike to save his life and the high ones were clearly hittable. Knowing they were going to send him out in the 5th I hon estly didn't feel the 9-2 lead was all that safe and feared it might be a 9-5 game by the time he left (it was 9-6). The pathetic thing was that the batters hitting him mostly had averages under 250. Guidry wants him to throw more fastballs, but that is because his breaking pitch has lost most of its bite, the bite that made him effective last year.
The Yankees bullpen is now in full reversion mode and even with an effective Dotel, its hard to see how the likes of Proctor, Farnsworth and Meyers can carry the incredibly weak back of the rotation. The recipe for the most brutal dog days in memory is in place. If the Yankees haven't fallen out of it by the deadline, Cashman has to fiind a pitcher, and a good middle reliever might prove easier to obtain than a starter. Small has now been officially cut, as we knew he would be, had too be, but the scary thing is he's been pretty much as good as Chacon lately.
An ancillary point of interest. Experts like Joe Morgan can say what they like, but even after AROD singled and homered in the early innings, no less a baseball man than Frank Robinson, someone who genuinely belongs in the Hall of Fame, intentionally walked Giambi to get to AROD with the game on the line in the 8th. What we know and Robinson verified is that while AROD will not stay in this 275 funk, his inevitable break out, which may have started today, will not make him a clutch performer either. Robinson proved that AROD's choking is not in the eye of overly demanding fans, it is a matter of statistical percentages, the kind you build game strategy around.
Last note: Tim McCarver wondered aloud today why Giambi never bunted to bust the shift like he did last year. When you're noy only slower than slow Joe Morgan but even slower than the village idiot of spots announcing, you, Mr. Joe Torre, are really slow,
posted by joe valente | 11:14 PM
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