As I was watching the loss to the A's, I turned to my wife when the Yankees had the bases loaded and Alan Embree on the ropes and said, "If Torre doesn't pinch hit Phelps for Mientkiewicz here, we are going to lose this game. Watch." I had visions of the NoMaas "Torre Losses" counter ticking to "1", but I thought we'd probably see Phelps. It made too much sense.
Sure enough, clunky and useless as always, Mientkiewicz strolled to the plate destined to destroy the scoring outburst that could have been with his double play. Why on God's green earth would a manager, still breathing air, allow such a worthless and inept batter a plate appearance in this situation, against a lefty, with a very good right handed option staring him in the face. Is that not the definition of a platoon? That's the way you work a left/right platoon in baseball. Bases loaded, chance to break the game open, left hander on the mound, another lefty warming by himself in the pen...you have your moment to affect the outcome of the game as a manager by putting your powerful right handed pinch hitter in the box.
I must confess that I checked both Peter Abraham's blog and NoMaas before I came here to post. Sure enough, even Peter, who has been fairly supportive of the Mientkiewicz signing is starting to write about Minky's time running out with an 0-20 stretch in the works. NoMaas, right on schedule, chalked up the loss to the Torre counter. Last season, Joe's dangerous toys were Tanyon Sturtze and Bernie Williams. Sturtze's injury saved Yankee fans from Joe's stubborn use of the "just plain awful" reliever, and Brian Cashman's stand in Spring Training saved us from Bernie's dead arm and dying bat in 2007. The new toys that Torre seems destined to kill Yankee fans with are Mientkiewicz and perhaps Farnsworth, he of the bespectacled wildness.
Hideous. Hideous. Hideous. Oh, and by the way, Pavano is hurt. Phil Hughes ain't walkin' through that door anytime soon. Mussina is hurt and shaky. Igawa is improved, but far from trustworthy. Melky Cabrera is ice cold. Aside from that we're great. Frustrating.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Torre and Minky Sittin in a Tree
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1 comment:
On the bright side, neither of them are striking out much either, so I'm gonig to go on a hinge and say that their luck will change . Melky got a few balls that he did have the barrel on but the bat either cracked or he didnt seem to follow through or something, from the swing it sure looked like it was gonna go a lot further than the infield... and Mink did have a few fairly well hit flys right at somebody.
Remember boys and girls, this is April, last year a kid on the twins hit .202 in April batting mostly in the heart of the order, well... that guy won the MVP....
I'm also please to see that Igawa's got his control back and looked sharp most of the game.
It's a stinker in a lot of ways, but it's April, you look for progress, results are not a huge factor espically when your not exactly getting killed, the Yankees put a ton on against really good pitching.
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