The Genius Maker 5-2

I still don’t understand what Girardi is thinking in carrying so many pitchers?  What team carries 12 let alone 13 pitchers, especially when guys are banged up?  His quote about “being fine” in LF looks even more absurd now.  This is the BS about Girardi that drive me crazy.

Cano is just off.  He will get it straightened out but he is missing pitches he would normally crush.  His frustration is showing up as he swung at a strike 2 that was way outside and I said to my son (who has been watching the game on DVR and fast forward with me – pretty cool) he is going to swing at anything this pitch.  On queue he swing at a slurve inside and in the dirt for strike 3.   Fortunately his defense has still been excellent as he made a smooth as silk catch over his shoulder with 1^st and 3^rd and 1 out where Ibanez was slow to get there and probably would not have been able to get there.

Nova really struggled all game with breaking balls as he left a lot of spinners, but he battled as his fastball had some life (got up to 96 a few times).  Unfortunately the calls of changeups really came at bad times and he allowed 2 HR’s on the changeup.  The pitch selection I have not been happy with.  Nova battled and kept us in the game, but Girardi left him in too long and the game got a little out of reach, especially when you are fielding a AAA lineup.

Yes, I called ours a AAA lineup!  When you have NO bench matchups available and you are starting Andrew Jones against a righty, Ibanez in RF and a 1^st baseman who has a swing that is all messed up to go along with a weak hitting catcher…you won’t score a lot. 

Chavez had an odd thing happen to him as he must have gotten a vertigo attack or something as he had to leave the game with dizziness while at the plate.  Nunez got up and completed the strike out for Chavez, but hopefully Chavez is OK.

BTW, we talked about giving Nunez a chance to see what he has, but his stick is not good enough to cover his awful fielding.  I do think OF might be better for him and he might be better than Jones and Ibanez, but his .614 OPS isn’t exactly something that makes you want to stick him in the lineup.  Of course if Girardi/Cashman would have kept a good defensive OF’r with upside on the team we would at least be gaining valuable knowledge (and save money) rather than getting very mediocre production and poor fielding.  The decisions have been very odd if you ask me.  I will acknowledge that Ibanez and has his OPS of .729 is slightly better than I expected (I was thinking he would be around .700), but the point why I would not have signed him was his inability to play defense and at age 40 you have NO upside so why not get a young guy with upside who will play better defense or at least be used as a defensive replacement?  I know you are pretty tired of hearing me say this, but it just doesn’t show any vision and I think it is more Girardi than Cashman, but I could be wrong on that.

Martin better get his footwork in order behind the plate because he did another poor job of blocking a ball although it didn’t hurt us.  His technique has been bad.

5-0 loss and we are now 3.5 games out of first.