And can someone explain why Scott Proctor was pitching yesterday, after having pitched on three of the past four days, and with all the drama that occurred in Friday night’s game?

of course not.  Torre is a terrible bullpen manager.  it’s that simple.  i’m not blaming this season on Torre.  the players have underperformed and that can’t all be on the manager.  but purely as a in-game tactician, he is brutal.

why didn’t Britton get an inning?  why didn’t he get the 9th inning on Friday?

why did Bruney throw 4 pitches yesterday and Proctor threw 38?

why was Proctor allowed to walk 3 batters in a row last sunday?

there are no answers to these questions.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

if i had to guess, i would guess it is bad news for yankee fans.  swindal was cashman’s biggest supporter, and i would now guess that cashman won’t last the season.  cashman is not perfect by any means, but changing philospophy at this juncture could be pretty disastrous.  it’s not hard to see what cashman was trying to do:  plug holes on the major league level with shorter term contracts to buy time for the blossoming farm system.  the major league team has been a disappointment, but it’s hard to deny the 360 he’s pulled with the farm system.  the key will be what free agents he can add to complement the young pitching that should be ready to contribute in a year or two.

a new GM who is under orders to win at all costs in 2008 will do more harm than good in the long run.

I actually felt bad for Proctor yesterday, even after calling him many bad names Friday night. You could see he was dismayed/angry that an IBB was called for Ramirez w/ Youkilis on deck. My jaw literally dropped when I saw that. Those pitches to Youkilis missed almost as bad as the intentionals, and it wasn’t a position that he should have been in - unless Torre secretly hates him. He looked so unnerved I wonder for his short term future.

I have to say up front that I’m not usually one to blame Joe Torre for the Yankees’ losses. However, I was so damn livid at the way that Joe managed the game yesterday that I’m still having a hard time getting over it.

Was the difference between leaving Moose in and taking him out really one solo home run? After he gives up the first homer, having been hit hard the previous inning, don’t you have to go get him, especially if you’re comfortable going to go get him after the next batter homers?

It’s cool to throw Proctor for two innings even though he’s been worked like a dog? You’ll let him practically lose the game and THEN you go get Bruney for four pitches and Myers for four pitches? Why not bring them in while the game is still winnable if you’re just going to bring them in anyway? Once the game is lost, why use your best pitchers?

Interestingly, you could have thrown Mike Myers against Ortiz THE FIRST TIME he batted in the seventh inning! Then, you would have actually been facing him in a crucial situation. Instead, Myers is brought in to face Ortiz when the game is already practically over.

It’s not that I’m asking Torre to know the future. I have no problem asking Moose to start the 6th, but why would you wait for him to blow the lead entirely before removing him? If you’re OK using a reliever with no one out in the sixth, get him in there before the lead is lost. If you’re OK using Myers and Bruney in the seventh, get them in their before you have a massive hole to climb out of. It shouldn’t be the case that Torre’s plan for using his relievers leads to such a suboptimal pattern as it did yesterday. If that’s how your contingency plan unfolds when your primary plan doesn’t work, then you have to revisit your entire plan, because that type of crap is unacceptable.

To be fair, the Yankees’ play in the seventh was perhaps the most embarrassing display of bad baseball I’ve ever seen. If they simply execute, Torre looks a lot better. Still, he had his hand in this loss as much as anyone.

And can someone explain why Scott Proctor was pitching yesterday?

I basically agree, SG, but I wonder if Joe wanted Proctor to get right back into things after the Friday night drama, so as not to forever “lose” Proctor in Fenway Park.  And to be fair, Proctor would have done okay if the defense didn’t lay a turd behind him.  Abreu’s wall-itis got everything started, and then Jeter blew two double play balls that would have minimized the damage.

But remember, if the Yankees can win tonight, their season record against Boston would be a not-terrible 5-7, and they can leave Boston with some good feelings.

Chances of a rainout are very pretty high:
http://www.weather.com/weather/wxdetail/USMA0046?from=36hr_fcst_undeclared

Jeter is sacrosanct to the fatuous New York media. Reality has ceased to exist. If it had been Jeter who made the flip to Cano, and Cano had thrown the ball away, these same mediots would have crucified Cano. They are a joke.

The mediots tend to follow Torre’s lead:

“It was an ugly play to begin with,” Torre said. “We got the ground ball, but Robby gave Jeter sort of an unusual handle and he just got rid of it quickly. You could see Dougie sort of backing in to try and get a good hop to catch it and you know Mike ran him over.”

Jeter should have held on to the ball if he wasn’t confident that he could make an accurate throw.

The only chance, however slim, of salvaging the season is to fire Torre now. Of course, he should have been fired after the 2004 season, and after every subsequent season.

side rant alert:

why is it suddenly illegal for the yanks to play a normal 1pm day game on a weekend? MLB’s insistence on televising every one of these games nationally hurts the actual fans of these teams. I’m sure people on the west coast wouldn’t mind seeing something different from the east every once in awhile anyway. This same 8pm bs ruined the mets yanks game i bought tickets for because my mom refused to go to a game that late, and i had incorrectly assumed that a sunday game would be played at a normal time. TV sucks, it is soley responsible for ruining the schedule and lengthening the games beyond belief. Actually, I can blame Torre for that as well, for constantly using 6 pitchers every time.

RE: 8 PM Sunday night games: agree, it sucks.  My 6 year old son really enjoys the Yankees, I get him to stay up ‘late’ and watch a normal game from 7 PM to 8:30 PM and then tell him how it ended when he wakes up the next day.  It is one of those father-son connections that helps build a fan for life.  If every games started at 8 PM I don’t think I would ever let him see a Yankees game.  Especially with these teams, the game is not going to end until midnight.

The loss lies squarely on Booby’s shoulders.  He took a path to that ball that gave him no chance of catching it.  The ball was so catchable that even Bernie circa 2006 would have caught it.

The loss lies squarely on Booby’s shoulders.  He took a path to that ball that gave him no chance of catching it.

by squarely, i think you mean partially.

they still had a chance to get out of the inning with 0 or 1 runs, and that is all on Jeter and Cano.

The blame for the 7th inning should go to Lowell. Lowell is the one who played dirty!

So, Damon may play some first?

I like the idea of having him prepare to play it if the need arises, but they seem, instead, to be planning on actually STARTING him at first. That would not be a good idea.

What does Phelps need to do to just win a shot at the everyday job?!

Yeah but he let the genii out of the bottle and it wasn’t Barbara Eden or Nicole Kidman

The blame for the 7th inning should go to Lowell. Lowell is the one who played dirty!

i don’t think Lowell did anything wrong in the 7th.  he didn’t mean to run over mientkiewicz.

So we got one good year out of Damon in cf out of his 4 year contract.  Gee good thing we didn’t sign Beltran(or Vlad) when we had the chance.

Kei Igawa is pitching in today’s game for Scranton so I’m fairly certain he’s not pitching tomorrow. I have no clue who the Yanks are gonna go to.

These Asian pitchers are very durable though

I’m just wondering why no one in the media is killing Derek Jeter for making two errors in the seventh inning that ended up costing the Yankees the game?  Can you imagine if that had been Alex Rodriguez?  Add in Jeter’s two double plays, and Jeter was as responsible for that loss as anyone else on the team yesterday, go-ahead HR aside.

SSSSSSHHH we don’t talk about those things. our precious has no shortcomings.

Kei Igawa is pitching in today’s game for Scranton so I’m fairly certain he’s not pitching tomorrow. I have no clue who the Yanks are gonna go to.

DeSalvo?

maybe they are hoping for a rain postponement so that Pettite may pitch tomorrow

The blame for the 7th inning should go to Lowell. Lowell is the one who played dirty!

Are you serious?  He was running down the line.  It’s not his fault Doug’s head got in the way, nor is it Doug’s either.  It was a freak accident, that’s it.

Anyway, Clippard could go tomorrow, but then they still would need to find someone for Tuesday.

Cutter, post the liveblog/game chatter. You’re 2 of 3.

I’m not really sure how Torre can be blamed for last night’s game. The Yankee defense collapsed in the 7th inning. Abreu made a bad play, Cano made a bad play, Jeter made 2 bad plays, A-Rod made a bad play. When defense collapses, it doesn’t matter who is pitching or how they are pitching (unless their striking out every single batter). I’m honestly curious. How was last night’s loss Joe Torre’s fault?

OK.  I will.

Lowell played dirty?  I didn’t know the Yankees had a contingent of pink-hats.

Minky isn’t exactly a hitter, so the wrist injury shouldn’t be too worrisome.

Lowell planting Cano into the turf wasn’t necessary and wasn’t real classy.

As for who wears the pink hats, one should look at the bitching about Arod going hard into little dusty pedroia and Youk crying like a baby about getting buzzed after the Sox hit three Yanks.  In fact, the Sox hit Jeter regularly and we never hear anything from him.

Just take first base Youk (if you had even gotten hit) and shut up.