Friday, October 5, 2007
Goats
Here are the goat for the Game One loss, in what I consider descending order:
Chien-Ming Wang:
Well, obviously. Wang was terrible, it was the second-worst start of his career (the worst coming this August against Toronto). He had lousy control, he couldn’t get any downward movement on the sinker, and worst of all he was getting the ball up in the zone, allowing it to get crushed.
They say that pitching wins championships, that great pitching beats great hitting, etc., etc. During the broadcast, the commentators kept saying how the Yankees couldn’t win without good pitching. Uh… they would have won without good pitching tonight if they’d gotten OKAY pitching. If Wang had given up 4 runs over 6 innings, we’d probably be recapping a Yankees win right now.
If this series goes 5 games, the Yankees might want to consider using Pettitte instead of Wang—Wang has always been better at home, and he might be better on short rest on Monday at Yankee Stadium. Pettitte would be going on full rest for Game 5 anyway.
You can forget the rest of this list—Wang lost this game, but there were other failures.
Derek Jeter:
In the first, he popped out to second following Damon’s homer. In the third, he struck out swinging, and in the fifth he flew out weakly to right field with the tying runs on base and nobody out. In the bottom of the inning, though nobody mentioned it, Kenny Lofton’s two-out RBI single (that made the score 7-3) was actually on a ground ball that most shortstops would have fielded. Of course, don’t expect much criticism of Jeter’s performance, that’ll be saved for A-Rod’s… well, A-Rod didn’t do anything really bad. He popped up with Abreu on first and two outs, but they probably woudn’t have done anything that inning, walked both times he came up with a chance to change the game, and then went 0-1 in a meaningless at bat late in the game.
Jeter was awful. A-Rod was… okay. A-Rod will get more blame than Jeter in this one, though.
Jorge Posada:
After a spectacular regular season, Posada got off to an awful postseason start. With a chance to break the game open in the first, he struck out swinging. He lined out in the fourth (and would have scored on Cano’s homer had he reached base), and with a chance to tie the game, or even break it open in the fifth, he struck out swinging. It was an awful, awful performance. Probably worse than Jeter’s, as he had more RBI opportunities.
Joe Torre:
He probably should have started Shelley Duncan against the lefty, but his big mistake was staying with Wang too long. There’s times when a pitcher gives up runs because he’s unlucky, but tonight Wang clearly had nothing. If it was September, it’s okay to leave him in there to save the pen and try to get him a “win” because the game is close. This is October, and you shouldn’t wait until the elimination games to use the bullpen early. He probably should have pulled Wang for Hughes in the third, after Cabrera’s homer made it 4-1. At that point the team could no longer risk what might happen if Wang didn’t find it, but they did risk it and lost big.
Then Torre shouldn’t have brought Hughes into the game at all. Hughes should NOT be this team’s mopup man, he should be the guy you bring in early when the starter doesn’t have it but you’re still in the game… like tonight.
Not pulling Wang is a second-guess. Bringing in Hughes? That was just asinine.
Anyway, that’s how it goes. The Yanks need to win Game Two, but losing Game One isn’t a disaster… it’s just a loss. If Cleveland had lost this game they wouldn’t have gone meekly.
There were “positives”. Sabathia didn’t pitch badly, but they were able to handle him pretty well—particularly working the counts (and not just because of the small strike zone, they were good at fouling pitches off, too. They pushed 3 runs across in 5 innings without getting many big hits. You don’t WANT to face him, but he doesn’t seem as scary.
They didn’t use Joba or Mo, so if they get 6 innings out of Pettitte tonight with the lead, they can use Joba for two and Mo for one and likely get the win.
Nobody got hurt.
Listen, I’m not happy they lost. I’m very unhappy. But this isn’t the worst thing to ever happen. I pointed out to Peter Abraham (and he mentioned it on his blog) that the Yanks are 5-0 when they lose Game One of the ALDS since the playoff expansion in ‘95, and 2-5 when they win Game One—and those two wins were in ‘98 and ‘99, when they plowed through EVERYONE. That doesn’t mean they’ll win, but it’s more important to win Game One and Three than it is to win Game One.
Despite the times Andy got knocked around in big games, I still trust Pettitte tonight. I hope he comes through.
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