Game 5 Recap

[WPA data via FanGraphs]

1. The Yanks put runners on first and second with one out for Derek Jeter in the 3rd inning but Jeter rapped into a double play. It was the biggest shift in WPA in the game at the time but didn't end up mattering much.

2. With the game still scoreless in the top of the 4th, Mark Teixeira worked a six pitch walk from Wade Davis. After A-Rod popped out to just behind second base and slammed his bat to the ground in disgust, Robinson Cano launched a 1-1 fastball from Davis into the right field seats, 2-0 Yanks. As he did with his first homer in Fenway, Cano dropped his lumber and took a moment to admire his handiwork. I can't blame him, but I'm guessing that's the kind of thing opposing pitchers don't take too kindly to.

3. In the 5th, the Yankees plated another two runs but went with a small ball approach instead. Brett Gardner led off with a single and was moved over to 2nd by a well-placed bunt off the bat of Francisco Cervelli that was almost good enough for a hit. Jeter then flipped a single to center, scoring Gardner. Two batters latter Teixeira finally got his first hit of the season, driving in Jeter to put the Yanks up 4-0.

4. CC Sabathia was perfect through 4 innings but allowed a leadoff walk to Evan Longoria to begin the 5th, lowering his best case scenario to a no-hitter.

5. The tension of the possible no-no began to mount in the 6th inning. Kelly Shoppach hit a sharp line drive to left field which Brett Gardner was in good position to field for the first out. With two down, Jason Bartlett battled through a 7 pitch at bat, fouling off three before being robbed of a base hit by a diving Mark Teixeira.

6. Carl Crawford walked to leadoff the 7th. Next, in a rather odd play, Ben Zobrist bounced one back at Sabathia and the big fella threw a little wide of second. Crawford arrived in time but overslid the bag and a heads up Cano was right there to apply the tag. Technically, he was safe and then made a base running error but the play was ruled a fielder's choice. Either way, the no-hitter was still intact. Upton was at the plate next and ripped a line drive right at third base but A-Rod made a diving stab, popped to his feet and threw a frozen rope to nail Upton at first. Inning over.

7. The Yanks blew the game open in the 8th, which wasn't exactly good for Sabathia. He was at 100 pitches and although any pitcher would enjoy four additional runs of support, it took the Yanks almost 20 minutes to tally them up and the anxiety of wanting to complete a no-hitter probably made it feel like even longer. 8-0, Yanks.

8. To begin the bottom of the 8th, Willy Aybar hit a bouncer up the middle that Sabathia deflected with his pitching hand. It bounced towards Cano who made the play in stride. One away. Next, Pat Burrell lofted a high fly to center. Two down. With Sabathia 109 pitches deep, Kelly Shoppach came to the plate and flailed at a first pitch change up. The crowd urged the big lefty on, but on the next pitch, Shoppach lined one to left field in front of Gardner, breaking up the no-hit bid. Joe Girardi immediately popped out of the dugout to remove Sabathia and CC was greeted with a standing ovation on his way back to the dugout.

9. The Yanks tagged on two more runs in the top of the 9th and David Robertson, who took over for CC in the 8th - got the final three outs. Yanks 10, Rays 0. Fin.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• Clearly, the story of the game was Sabathia's performance. The Yankees haven't had a no-hitter since David Cone's perfect game back in 1999 and every time a pitcher gets close, the game, no matter how out of hand, becomes highly captivating. This was about as much fun to watch as an early season game gets.
  
  
• Sabathia also made a slick play on a ball hit by Carl Crawford in the 4th. On a grounder back up the middle, CC's follow through left his glove hanging in the right place at the right time. He was able to snag it gracefully and throw to first seemingly before Crawford even got out of the box.
  
  
• The Cervelli-Sabathia tandem got off to a great start least year as well, combining for a complete game shutout in Baltimore.
  
  
• Cervelli also contributed offensively as well, knocking in a two-run double during the Yanks' onslaught in the 8th.
  
  
• When the no-hitter was broken up, Old Hoss Radbourn informed the Twitterverse what he would do under similar circumstances.

The series finale is tomorrow at 1:40.

I'll Show YOU Overmanaging!

During the 7th inning last night, after Chad Gaudin had been pulled and the Yankees' lead contracted to one run, Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon engaged in a managerial pissing contest of epic proportions. I detailed it in last night's recap, but as usual, left the editorializing for another post.

Both Matt and I have been critical of Joe Girardi's bullpen tinkering for a variety of reasons, but not because they haven't been successful. He's been pulling the strings and things have worked out well for him this year. That's terrific and all, but manager can deploy too many resources at once. It's called overmanaging, and we've discussed this before.

Let's roll the tape:

Once Girardi called on Marte with men on first and second and no one out, Maddon pinch hit for journeyman first baseman Chris Richard with righty Gabe Kapler. Fair enough. It would only have been Richards' fourth plate appearance of the year and Kapler is an upgrade at the plate. Those two moves essentially made themselves.

Due up next for the Rays were catcher Greg Zaun and lefty outfielder Gabe Gross, with the obvious pinch hitting candidates being two switch hitters, catcher Dioner Navarro and outfielder Willy Aybar.

Joe Girardi knew this, and had surely noticed that Marte had given just one baserunner (via a walk) in his 4 1/3 IP since being recalled from the DL. On three recent occasions Marte has pitched a scoreless inning or more, so despite the fact that Girardi said he thought of him as a LOOGY upon recall, he has undeniably been more than that. But rather than test Marte in a game that had the atmosphere and set up but not the import of a postseason one, he brought in Brian Bruney to face one of two guys who were just going to spin around and bat left handed against him anyway.

Even more questionable, Joe Maddon was the fact that called on Dioner Navarro who has a 53 OPS+ in 363 plate appearances this year, to hit for Zaun who was at 95 in 235. Navarro was slugging .266 against righties this year. Bruney got Navarro out, but was it really worth burning Damaso Marte after just one out to get Bruney face a guy who has been far, far, FAR below replacement level as a hitter this year?

Due up next was Gabe Gross, who about as strict of a platoon player as you will see in the majors today with about 9 times as many plate appearances against RHP than LHP. Girardi saw the opportunity to force Maddon's hand, and he did. Phil Coke came on, and Maddon went with Willy Aybar, who spun around to bat from his slightly weaker side, the right. Coke walked Aybar to load the bases but then got lefty Akanori Iwamura to ground out to end the inning.

All is well that ends well, right? Well, not really.

First of all, with two switch-hitting players on the bench, does it really make sense for Girardi to match up with them? Neither Navarro nor Aybar have significant platoon splits and neither are great hitters to begin with. If Girardi had just left Marte in, Maddon would have had to make the same moves.

Secondly, by burning through three pitchers who are all capable of throwing a scoreless inning or more each, Girardi fired three bullets and got only 3 outs. The security blanket of Hughes and Rivera were there, but as we saw last night, it's not fool proof. Thanks to Nick Swisher, the Yanks didn't have to go to extra innings, but if they did, their 5 of their best available relief pitchers would have already been used, as Jason pointed out in the comments, leaving a rather unappealing slew of possibilities for the later innings, when the game theoretically becomes increasingly important.

One of the reasons that this excessive matching up doesn't make that much sense to me is that it happens most often in close, low scoring games, a.k.a. the ones that are most likely to go into extra innings. Yes this was a September game with the safety net of expanded rosters, but every guy Girardi used projects to be on the 25 man for the playoffs, meaning that he wasn't treating it like one.

Ripping through a total of four pitchers and three pinch hitters in one inning is a luxury only afforded to managers one month out of the season and they are more than willing to use that option to prove to everyone how smart they are. Not only does it create even more commercial breaks and annoy the shit out of me personally, it's not really great strategy, even for games in September.

If someone could prove to me that bringing in three pitchers to face one batter each is somehow better than leaving in one pitcher (who is better than the other two) I would be open to that idea. However, given the fact that excessive pitching changes waste capable relievers after only a fraction the service they are capable of performing, leaving the bullpen exposed if the game goes into extras, I question it every time it happens.

Last night's game had a playoff feel to it and if that's what Girardi thinks is going to be proper strategy when the rosters contract and the games start to really matter, color me a little concerned. The fact that this hasn't backfired on Girardi yet is scary in that it very well might in October.

And It Was All Downhill From There...

Due to the magic of FanGraph's WPA charts, we can see exactly where it started going South for the Yanks. They had a 75% chance of winning the game entering the 5th inning, but unfortunately it would never get any higher than that.

Early in the game for the Yanks, the offense was entirely ignited by A-Rod. After going homerless over his last 43 at-bats, he smashed the first pitch of the second inning from David Price into the home bullpen.

During the broadcast, David Cone said he talked to Joe Maddon about moving Price, who had great success coming out of the bullpen at the end of last season, back there at any point. Maddon responded that there was never any thought, as he was simply too valuable in the rotation. Although he wasn't efficient today, it was still obvious why the Rays were of that opinion. I wonder how many fans in Tampa are clamoring for him to go back to the 'pen.

The Yanks did their best to escalate Price's pitch count and chase him from the game. With the score still 1-0 in the 4th inning, A-Rod worked a one out, 7 pitch walk . With Posada at the plate, A-Rod got a great jump and took off for second. Dioner Navarro's throw sailed into CF (his second throwing error to that point), and allowed Alex to take third easily. With the infield in, Cano hit a sharp grounder to third, which A-Rod again got a good jump on and Willie Aybar was forced to take the out at first. 2-0 Yanks.

The Rays got to Sabathia in the top of the 5th. Ben Zobrist led off with a homer to left. Joe Dillon followed with what should have a been a single, but ended up standing on third after Johnny Damon threw ball away over Cano's head for no apparent reason since Dillion wasn't going for second. Dillion scored on a sac fly by Navarro and the Rays were right back in the contest.

The third run of the day for the Yanks came on yet another throwing error by Navarro (there were a total of six errors in the game). Melky Cabrera doubled to start off the fifth, and was advanced to third by a Francisco Cervelli sac bunt. Navarro attempted a snap throw to third from his knees, but it bounced past Aybar, and Melky scored easily. Sliding back to the bag, though, the back of Carbera's neck met Aybar's shin. On the way to the plate, he held his hand to the area behind his right ear, but remained in the game.

In a matter of three batters in the sixth inning, the game turned dramatically. After a walk by B.J. Upton and a single by Carl Crawford, Willy Aybar deposited one into the left-centerfield seats to put the Rays up 5-3. It was a bit of a shocker, as CC had been in control for much of the outing.

Price took the mound to start the sixth, but was removed with two outs after having already thrown 105 pitches. Despite only 53 going for strikes, he was in line for the win. The Rays held the Yanks down for the next two innings, but that would change in the bottom of the eighth.

Mark Teixeira left off the inning against Grant Balfour and uncorked a blast as close to we have seen to reaching the upper deck in right field which put the Yanks within one. A-Rod was up next, worked a full count but popped out. Then Posada, Cano, and Swisher all reached base on a walk, a single and a walk. This set the stage, once again, for Melky Cabrera, the resident clutchologist. He grounded into was what very nearly an inning ending double play, but edged the throw at first. Replays showed it was basically a dead heat, so Melky was lucky to get the call and the Yankees to tie the game.

All the while CC Sabathia lay in wait. He was bailed out of a B.J. Upton walk by a caught stealing in the 7th and needed only 8 pitches to work through the eighth, leaving him at 101 for the day. Entering the ninth inning, I felt that Girardi should have left Sabathia in (I sent a message to our Joe on GChat, for the record). Instead, he went with "the book" which dictates a manager bring in his closer in a tie game in the ninth inning at home.

Despite allowing 5 runs, Sabathia had pitched reasonably well. He had only allowed 5 hits and smoothly maneuvered through the 7th and 8th. He could have been left in a batter by batter basis with Mo ready to be deployed from the bullpen.

Alas, Girardi did not, and Mo gave up a triple that died at the outfield fence to Ben Zobrist who scored on a single by Joe Dillon in the next at bat. That unlikely duo combined to score four of Tampa's runs after a two out single to B.J. Upton. It was Mo's worst outing of the year (3ER, 2/3IP), nudging out another game against the Rays on May 7th, during which he allowed back to back home runs to Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton, the only other time this year he did not complete at least one inning. Two inherited runners scored on Phil Coke's watch and by the time three outs were recorded, four men had come to the plate. For what it's worth, 6 of the 9 runs Mariano has allowed this year have come in non-save situations.

The Yanks would not go quietly in the bottom of the ninth. Jeter led off with a single which Johnny Damon followed with a double over the head of B.J. Upton in center. Big Teix mashed a double in the right field gap off of Dan Wheeler, which scored two and brought up A-Rod as the tying run with no one out. Alex grounded out without advancing the runner and passed the buck to Posada. Jorge saw 8 pitches (2 strikes that were visibly below his knees) from Wheeler before lacing a liner right at B.J. Upton who was positioned in deep center. Joe Maddon used his sixth pitcher of the game, former Yankee Randy Choate, to get the last out against Cano. Robby alos worked a full count and lined out to Upton, who momentarily look like he misplayed it.

The ninth inning lasted a cool 47 minutes, but the game wrapped up at 4:44, which should leave Matt enough time to hit up that OTB on the way back home from the Bronx.