All's Well That Ends Well

Good morning, Fackers. We can all exhale a bit as the Yankees did what they had to do last night in order to even the series on the way to Philly. The outcome was on the line until the very last at bat, and there were a lot of people that were acquitted of some bad decision making when Matt Stairs went down swinging.

Joe Girardi made a couple less-than-optimal line up choices, Derek Jeter made a terrible, inadvisable bunt attempt with an 0-2 count, and the umpires made two incorrect calls on double plays within an inning of each other. Fortunately, the two guys that Girardi inserted both responded with positive contributions, and the mistakes by Jeter and the umpires were saved from more intense scrutiny by Mariano Rivera's two inning save.

Most importantly, A.J. Burnett came up with a dominant performance and saved Girardi's hide from the most obvious backlash. Burnett needs to pitch well in every game Molina catches him or else it becomes a bad decision in hindsight. Molina did a good job of corralling the breaking balls he bounced in the dirt and they seemed to be on the same page in terms of pitch selection for the most part.

As far as his offensive contributions go, Jose Molina was never in real danger of getting a hit in his first at bat as he took six pitches and fouled one back from Pedro Martinez on the way to working a walk. He grounded out to weakly to third in his only other plate appearance.

The one play where Molina truly made his presence felt was on a snap throw to first, just inches behind Raul Ibanez's head, to erase Jayson Werth's lead off single in the fourth. You can debate the merits of having Molina behind the plate in terms of pitch calling, but it's inarguable that Molina's throwing arm is a tremendous asset. Posada simply never makes that play.

Surprisingly, with Philly's lefty-heavy line up and two righties in Burnett and Rivera on the mound, Jerry Hairston's defense didn't really come into play. He didn't make any great plays nor did he miss any by a couple of feet. What he did do was come up with a big base hit to lead off the 7th inning against Pedro and Brett Gardner (who replaced him as a pinch runner) came around to score an important insurance run.

The end goal of a manager's moves should be to put the best team on the field with the information available at the time. Joe Girardi's two decisions worked out well for him, but doesn't mean that they were the right ones. Girardi got away with those calls, but Derek Jeter wasn't so fortune with the choice he made.

With two men on, no one and a run already under their belts in the 7th inning, the Yankees looked as if they were poised to break the game open. Against Chan Ho Park, Jeter showed bunt and took a strike on the first pitch. He watched another fastball go past for the second strike. Before the third pitch, Tim McCarver boldly stated that "there's no way Jeter's bunting again", which seemed like a mind-numbingly obvious point at the time, but Jeter actually did bunt.

Bunting with one or no strikes in this spot with a hitter as good as Jeter at the plate is a bad decision. Bunting with two strikes - where the most likely scenario is giving away an out to move the runners over and the second most likely one is to bunt foul and give away an out for nothing - is inexcusable. Jeter would have to have gotten that bunt down something like 80 or 90% of the time (which is clearly much higher than even the best bunter's success rate) for that to be a defensible play. He admitted that it was a "stupid decision" during the postgame press conference but had the luxury of a win to cover up his impulsive and foolish move.

Brian Gorman was similarly left off the hook by the result of the game. He made two wrong calls at a very crucial part of the contest but luckily the one that was the biggest rally killer was called against the team that was already leading. The difference between having the bases loaded and being out of the inning like the Yankees would have been had Gorman saw the ball hit the ground ebfore Ryan Howard's glove is 1.65 runs on average. Had Gorman got the play at first involving Utley in the top of the 8th, it would have been the difference of .538 runs. So please don't tell me "we're even" because the calls went both ways.

Gorman was not in a great position to see the ball on the play by Howard, but the first baseman had to reach across his body and glove the ball thumb down to make the play; more likely the way to catch a short hop than a ball on the fly. Howard reacted as if he didn't catch the ball when he fired it wildly to second base but Gorman had already made the call. It might not have been his fault, but that's all the more reason to institute replay; to examine plays that the umpire could not have made correctly with any level of certainty.

Flying under the radar in all of this is Alex Rodriguez, who went 0-4 with three strikeouts last night and is now 0-8 with 6 Ks in the series. Luckily for him, there are other things to make a big deal out of.

The reactions to a win are always going to be softened by the enjoyment of the victory. We should be thankful that the Yanks came away on top because if they had lost last night, it would have left a bitter taste for a long, long time.