Great Moments In Self-Congratulation

Tim Britton, who was filling in for Byran Hoch this weekend over at MLB.com, dug up this gem from Joe Girardi after yesterday's game:

When asked after Sunday's 4-3 win if he thought his ejection helped his team come from behind in the eighth inning, Joe Girardi just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sometimes I think I should get thrown out in the first."

Let's hear it for Joe Girardi and his super-clutch ejection, ladies and gentlemen. Play. Of. The Game.

If he had just came out to argue the call without getting thrown out, who knows what might have happened...

• Would Cito Gaston decided against intentionally walking Mark Teixeira, instead leading to an improbable, line-out-step-on-the-bag double play?
  
  
• Would Jason Frasor still have tossed the wild pitch with A-Rod up that allowed Gardner to score and tie the game?
  
  
• Could A-Rod still have managed to strike out on a pitch right down the middle of the plate if Girardi hadn't lit a fire under his ass like that?
  
  
• Would Robinson Cano, who only had a meager 81 hits (two earlier in the game) and 43 RBIs coming into that at-bat have finally woken the fuck up and done something for this team!!1?1!/??
  
  
• Could Joba Chamberlain still have given up that run in the bottom half of the inning without the inspiration from Girardi's magical ejection?
  
  
• Where would Mariano Rivera have found the motivation to throw a perfect ninth inning had Joe not been tossed?

In all seriousness, this is an example of a manager thinking he matters way fucking more than he actually does. The Yankee rally was in full swing when Girardi got tossed. The Blue Jays already hit Cervelli and Gardner with pitches to start the inning and then Derek Jeter ripped a double, driving in a run and putting men on second and third, still with no one out. At that point, the Yankees' Win Expectancy was at 59% - a single gives them the lead, an out ties the game and they got multiple opportunities for both. Even after Swisher "struck out", they had a greater than 50/50 chance of winning the game and an even better chance of at least tying it right there.

The players were probably pretty ticked off at the terrible call by the umpire. Could that lead to a rally in some cases? Maybe. Did what Joe Girardi did help the team in any meaningful way, shape or form? I highly fucking doubt it. Players win games, not managers by getting ejected from them.

But keep telling yourself that getting thrown out of the game "fired the team up" or what have you, Joe. You came up huge yesterday. Great work. Just don't throw out your elbow patting yourself on the back.

Will Cowboy Joe Be Put Out To Pasture?

The old cliche says that you never notice the umps until they screw something up. And for the most part, I think that's right. The men in blue take a lot of flack when they get something wrong, and it seems to me that the level of anger directed at them has been growing recently. But generally speaking, I think they do a good job. If we need a super slow-mo instant replay from three different angles before we can tell, I think we can cut them a little slack on the close ones.

What isn't quite so easy to stomach is when an umpire chooses to make himself less inconspicuous. Certain umps like to get a little too emphatic with their punch outs. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Tim McClelland is notoriously slow and nonchalant when behind the plate. Tuesday night saw Balking Bob Davidson nearly lose his mind in tossing Carl Crawford and Joe Maddon after an indefensibly bad strike call.

And of course, Cowboy Joe West has been having a quite a 2010 for himself. While West is usually the one with the poor strike zone while Davidson calls the balks, the two apparently chose to reverse roles this week. By now you've certainly heard of West's two balk calls on Mark Buehrle yesterday, leading to West tossing Ozzie Guillen and then Buehrle. As Rob Iracane at Walkoff Walk rightly points out, the two balk calls may have been borderline, but West within his rights to call them. And while I can understand Buehrle's frustration after getting hung up twice on something many other pitchers get away with, he didn't help his case by drawing a line in the dirt after the first and dropping his glove in frustration after the second. You can debate whether or not his ejection was deserved, but it certainly shouldn't be surprising.

What's most disturbing though is that circumstantial evidence is mounting that West's repeated appearances in the news may not be accidental. On the heels of yesterday's debacle in Cleveland, word leaked that West will be working this weekend's series between Boston and Kansas City. It will be West's first series with Boston since his early season comments about their pace of play. Normally umpiring crews are not publicized by MLB in advance of a series, and this one is no different. How then did this information become public? Through Joe West's publicist of course.

This is the real problem here. Regardless of how poorly regarded West is as an umpire, regardless of his confrontational history as an umpire, I'm willing to cut him some slack as an arbiter of the game. I can understand why West, with a side career as country singer, might retain a publicist to support that endeavor. But there's absolutely no way that any umpire or any official within Major League Baseball should be publicizing his upcoming series. His job as an umpire is to be invisible, not to intentionally draw attention to himself.

Buehlre may face a fine for his actions yesterday. Ozzie Guillen will certainly be fined and possibly even suspended for his actions and for his hilarious, and likely truthful, postgame rant. And that's fine. I don't begrudge those two the actions they took but they took those actions knowing full there are consequences for them. Now they'll be held accountable, but accountability is a two way street.

I understand that MLB cannot publicly admonish, fine, or suspend Joe West. But at this point, with his comments on the pace of play, with his look-at-me actions during yesterday's game, and with his inexcusable press release, Major League Baseball has to do something about Joe West.

West is in his 32nd year as a Major League umpire. He'll be 59 by year's end and isn't exactly the fittest fella on the field. This past off-season, MLB had no qualms with quietly showing the door to longtime umps Randy Marsh, Ed Montague, Rick Reed, and Charlie Relaford, as well as even longer-tenured supervisors Marty Springstead, Rich Garcia, and Jim McKean. After his antics through the first two months of 2010, MLB would be very wise to do the same with Joe West after this season.

Game 30 Recap

1. Marcus Thames' defense cost the Yankees once again in the second inning - although this time Javy Vazquez wasn't the recipient of it. J.D. Drew singled to lead off the frame and moved up to second on a curveball in the dirt that got past Francisco Cervelli. Burnett retired David Ortiz on a high fly ball, struck out Adrian Beltre on a nasty hook and was one out away from stranding Drew. However, Jeremy Hermida lined a ball to left field that Thames got to in time, but the ball caromed off of his glove and Drew, who was running on contact, scored easily to put the Red Sox up 1-0.

2. Burnett walked Marco Scutaro on five fastballs to begin the third. The next batter, Dustin Pedroia, ripped a ball right down the third baseline that ricocheted off the part of the wall that faces the plate and back out into left field. When he fielded it, Thames briefly looked towards third base at Marco Scutaro but that moment of hesitation allowed Pedroia to dig for second.

That ended up being just a drop in the bucket. Burnett walked Youk and Drew followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. Burnett got ahead of the ghost of David Ortiz 0-2 but threw him three straight balls to fill up the count. Ortiz fouled one off and then sliced a ball down the right field line that bounced into the stands for a ground rule double, scoring Pedroia but holding Youk at third. Someone named "Adrian bel-TRAY" then rapped a two run double to left which was followed by a RBI single by Jeremy Hermida. When the dust settled, the Sox were ahead 6-0.

3. The Yankees got on the board in the top of the fourth inning with a massive home run of the Sports Authority sign on top of the Green Monstah. Two batters later, A-Rod followed with a tater of his own atop the Monster, albeit less convincing, landing just one row deep. Sawx 6, Yanks 2. The pitch was actually a pretty good one,

4. Lil' Dusty worked a one out walk in the fourth and was doubled in by Youk to make it 7-2 Boston.

5. Hermida homered on 1-0 fastball from A.J. Burnett in the 5th, putting the Sawx up 9-2 and chasing Burnett from the game.

6. Ramiro Pena replaced Derek Jeter at shortstop and led off the 8th inning with a single. Robinson Cano drove him in with a base knock of his own with two outs to cut the Yanks' deficit to 6, but that was as close as they would come. Final score, 9-3 Red Sox.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• A.J. Burnett's struggles at Fenway Park continued. He allowed nine runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings, walked three and struck out four. He command wasn't great and it was one of those nights when every hard hit ball (and a few softer ones) found a place to fall.
  
  
• Lester was on point, throwing seven innings of two run ball, allowing six baserunners and striking out seven. He threw 103 pitches and might have been able to at least begin the 8th inning but with a seven run lead, he called it a night.
  
  
• Joe Girardi got tossed in the fourth inning. Thames struck out looking on a curveball that was well outside stuck around to jaw at Tim McClelland, whose strikezone had been erratic (to put it kindly) all night. Girardi came out and separated the two and after they exchanged words and Girardi started walking back towards the dugout and got bounced. He got his money's worth after that, apparently complaining about some low strikes that were being called.
  
  
• A-Rod's homer was his 586th, tying him with Frank Robinson on the all-time list.
  
  
• Romulo Sanchez made his Yankee debut when he replaced Burnett in the 5th. He touched 97 on the ESPN gun but has a wild motion, falling off the mound to left, seemingly off balance and out of control. For whatever reason the RomBomb (just made that up) pitched the final 3 2/3 innings despite the fact that the Yankees have a 13 man bullpen. He was effective though,
  
  
• As proven tonight, ESPN's K Zone is horseshit. Since it always aligns perfectly with the centerfield camera, you can tell it's not based on PitchFX and is just done by some guy in the production booth who decides where to place the strikezone can mark where he thinks the pitch crosses the zone. It's just someone's opinion but the ESPN crew acts like it's some sort of official measure. It's not.
  
  
• For some reason, the ESPN production crew was showing shots from behind the plate when batters were leading off innings early in the game. It was pretty disorienting as it made a flyball by Marcus Thames in the third inning look like a home run.
  
  
• Jon Miller claimed that Kevin Russo made his Major Leauge debut tonight when in fact it was yesterday. When he corrected himself he said that it was his first appearance on Sunday Night Baseball "the only game we really care about". It was the most accurate thing anyone said in the booth all night.

This game was pretty miserable but like we said in the preview, the Yanks were playing with house money. They will see the Sox again for a quick two game set in the Bronx starting on May 17th but won't be back at Fenway until the last series of the season. For now, they head out to Detroit and begin a four game set tomorrow night at 7.

YOUK GETS FACKIN' LAID THE FACK OUT!!!1!1!!

[I had to take a bunch of screen grabs and turn them into a movie file, so I apologize for the choppy quality.]

Quick thoughts in no particular order:

• For a guy that has been hit by 52 pitches in his career and hangs over the plate like he's drunk at a urinal, Youk sure takes getting hit pretty personally.
  
  
• You have to appreciate any baseball fight where the two combatants actually make contact with each other.
  
  
• I appreciate this one even more for obvious reasons.
  
  
• Youk really threw his helmet at Porcello? I mean, it's better than keeping your catcher's mask on like a certain pussy on the Red Sox I'm thinking of, but that's pretty weak.
  
  
• Porcello has his arms up and backs away like he wants nothing to do with the fight, but ends up tossing Youk anyway. Well done, sir. Nominee for the Fack Youk Hall of Fame? We shall see...

Enjoy your suspensions, gentlemen!

Feel Good Story Of The Morning

From the Post (of all places). Meet the only person in the world who thought Brett Gardner would hit a home run last night:

"I met with several different children, probably 15 or 20, and one little girl, she gave me a bracelet," Gardner said of his pregame trip to Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital at New York Presbyterian yesterday, before he went out and played a huge role -- including delivering an inside the park home run -- in the Yanks' 5-4 win over the Twins. "I asked what it was for and she said it was for me and she told me that if I kept it I would hit a home run and she said I'd hit a home run tonight."

He kept the gift in his locker. He hit a home run. He did lots more. He met so many kids, he doesn't remember the little girl's name -- but he remembers her face. And he'll always remember last night.

This girl clearly does not have access to Baseball-Reference in her room. It took Gardner 222 Major League plate appearances to hit his first home run and two games later, when he wasn't even in the starting line-up, he rips around the bases for an inside-the-parker, which single-handedly brought the crowd back into the game. What are the odds?

I don't think anyone thought it was a good thing when Johnny Damon got ejected, but stepping into the #2 spot, Gardner singled in the fifth, hit the inside the park home run in the seventh and tripled to lead off the ninth. Not a bad night to catch a game in the Bronx.