I have not been able to write much but I have been
watching the games. Nothing that was so
critical to write on, but I did notice Cano in one of his I am going to swing
at everything modes for the past games.
I am writing this before the end of the game because I am watching on
tape. It is the 6th inning
and the Yanks have a 3-1 lead. Hughes
was not looking good last inning, but he was throwing a better slider (moving
right to left) rather than his curve that is more down. Looks like he is just changing the break
angles because the speed is the same. It
is better though. Anyway, Hughes started
the 6th with a walk and he was throwing 88-89 and not throwing
well. Then grooving a pitch he allowed a
single. Right there Hughes should have
been out of the game. Girardi sleeping
at the wheel allows Hughes to throw another batting practice pitch for another
single. Surely after allowing a HR to
Reynolds earlier, now Girardi would have to take out Hughes? Nope, he grooves a breaking ball and the Orioles
take a 5-3 lead…Now Girardi felt it was a good time to take him out???? Absolutely horrible job by
Girardi…unacceptable and absurd. Hughes
had almost 100 pitches at this point. I
am so ticked I had to write this before even watching the end of the game.
UPDATE AFTER GAME:
Well, as expected, Girardi sucked the life out of the team with a mind
boggling non move. His response after
the game was, “I thought
that was Hughsie’s guy to get out, and he didn’t do it…my other choice is to
bring (Cody) Eppley in there, and then to bring in Booney for the left-hander,
and then I have to bring in another right-hander. I felt better leaving Hughsie
in against Reynolds than what I would have done after Booney. If it’s one out,
it’s a different story. But there was nobody out.”
OK, please allow me to respond to these quotes. First, is it really necessary to address
everyone on our team with some sort of a pet nick name by putting a “ey” or an “ie”
at the end of everyone’s name? I don’t think
he has every called Robinson Cano…Cano, he is always uses Robbie, yet he uses the
last names of Hughsie and Booney…Cody Eppley must be his favorite name as he doesn’t
have to think.
Sorry, to take you down that road, but it is kind of
childish all the time…
Now let’s look at what he said…first he throws Hughes
under the bus saying it was his job and he didn’t do it. There are times for that and sometimes a
lefty or right specialist or even the guy holding down the 8th inning
or the closer just need to do their job.
However, and I have said this hundreds of times, the managers job is to
put the players in the best position where their skills have the best chance to
succeed. They won’t always succeed, but
that is your job. For example, have
Jeter face a lefty instead of a righty, have Rapada almost never face a righty
(and use him frequently), etc…
So after Hughes looked terrible in his first batter
walk of the 6th inning and you even noticed it enough to get the bullpen
up, why in the world didn’t you slow the game down to ensure that someone could
come in to face Wieters if the 2nd guy in the inning got on base and
Hughes continued to look bad? The score
is 3-1 and you have a ton of pitchers in the pen because of September call
ups. You don’t need to worry about using
6 guys as you have far more than you need.
Wieters is better against lefties so I would have used a righty like
Cory Wade as his changeup is good against lefties and he has done well against
lefties even when he was struggling. I
was afraid to leave Hughes in there against Wieters and I would have made a
move right there. But after he grooved
another pitch to Wieters and lines a single, there is NO excuse to leave Hughes
in there against a guy who already homered off of him. I would have gone to Eppley or any of the
other righties. Another game on Girardi’s
hands. Keeping Robby Thompson as 3rd
base coach is enough of a reason to question Girardi, but yesterday was a
joke. Then his lame excuse of if there
was one out it would be different???
WHAT? You have 12 outs to go and
you only need 6 outs to get to Robertson and Soriano and I am not sure if my
math is right, but you have at least 6 pitchers to get those 6 outs.
Back to reality as I have been watching too much
fiction on TV lately.
It was great to see Chris Dickerson get called up and
play well. If you remember back to pre
season, I was a big supporter of keeping him over Ibanez because I felt they
could similarly, but Dickerson had a little upside to only downside for Ibanez
and Dickerson is a far better defender and also could be a decent pinch
runner. Ibanez got off to a much better
start than I thought (and I on numerous occasions stated such), but he has been
awful lately. Further, while his glove
has not been tested much and has not been the liability I thought it would be
in costing us games; his arm is one of the weakest in the league and teams
routinely take extra bases on him that they wouldn’t off of 99% of the league. Our corner OF positions of Ichiro, Jones and
Ibanez all have OPS’s in the .700 - .730 range…that is very weak. Ibanez since August 1 (just over a month) has
an OPS of about .600! Jones is even
worse at around .480!!! Ichiro has been
mediocre, but he hasn’t SB’s in a helpful way and his defense has been just OK
(I hate how long he takes to get rid of the ball even if he has a strong
arm). The other issue and this is why
people who complain about homers don’t understand, is that these guys have a
combined OBP of about .300. This kills
innings!
The other part that has me upset (do you see a theme),
is when Cano has a batting average of .303.
I know his OPS is good and that is all that really matters, but we are
talking about a guy who could go down as the greatest 2nd baseman of
all time. Seriously, he is that great…and
while some of the reason is that his defense is phenomenal, it is also that he
is the best hitter on our team. If he
could just slow down that “I am going to swing no matter what” mentality he
should have an OPS over 1.000. He also
needs to get his AB’s against lefties better as he has huge splits – a terrible
.620 OPS against lefties and a great 1.101 against righties.
We need ARod to come back and hit well. Give us a mid .800 OPS or better. We really need him.
All this being said, I am not panicked as we are
banged up and we should be able to get ourselves straightened out when we get ARod, Tex
and Pettitte back. We are a flawed team,
but the competition is at least as equally flawed.
If the season ended today, Oakland
and Baltimore
would be the wild card teams.
"Cody Eppley must be his favorite name as he doesn’t have to think."
ReplyDeleteAwesome. :-)
Hockey players and coaches do the stuff with the "ie" ending all the time. It's almost universal throughout the NHL.
Another unsatisfactory post game speech by Girardi. As you said, throwing Hughes slightly under the bus there. Also, that was the only thing during the press conference he said that wasn't a total cliche. I think he said 'we need to be better on pitching, hitting, and defense' about 3 times when deflecting some legitimate questions.
I find it hard to root for coaches and managers who address the media the way Girardi does. He doesn't let you in on his real thoughts, and is condescending in the process. A perfect counterexample for me, as Steve knows, is New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. He has his plusses, he has his minuses, but after the game, he lets the fans know that he saw everything they saw on the field that day, and then points out some things the fans probably didn't notice.
Another thing I'd like to gripe about is Cano after he hits the ball. Today he fails to run out a ground ball that is booted, and either yesterday or the day before he stood still in an arrogant pose to admire what turned out to be a flyout. In the last example, he would have been out even if he hustled, but the outfielder's had to jump and his glove hit the wall immediately after the catch was made. The ball could have easily been knocked loose.
The fact that Cano committed another lack of hustle so soon after the first is especially distressing. Either he wasn't talked to, or just doesn't care. Neither of those explanations are satisfactory in my book.
Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be a very exciting September. I prefer exciting Octobers--holding that 10 game lead would have been just fine for me. :-)