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.

Swish Steps Up, Yanks Walk Off

Even though both the Yankees and the Rays have increasingly less to play for with each passing regular season game, it wasn't apparent last night. The game had all the trimmings of a postseason match-up, save for the fact that Chad Gaudin was starting.

Like he did in his previous two starts for the Yankees, Gaudin fizzled out at a certain point. Unlike his previous two, he went deep into the game, holding the Rays scoreless up until Evan Longoria came to the plate in the top of the seventh inning. Longoria ripped an 0-2, lined shot over the wall in left field. Gaudin then gave up a single to Ben Zobrist and a walk to Pat Burrell prompting Joe Girardi to go to the bullpen.

He first called on Damaso Marte causing Joe Maddon to pinch hit for lefty-hitting first baseman Chris Richard with Gabe Kapler. Marte retired Kapler on a fly ball to right on only two pitches, but then with switch hitting Gregg Zaun due up, Maddon summoned switch-hitting Dioner Navarro, who spun around to bat left handed. Girardi countered by signaling for the righty Brian Bruney who got Navarro to ground into a force out at third. The managerial meddling didn't stop there as Girardi tapped his left arm for Phil Coke and Maddon deployed the switch-hitter Willy Aybar. Coke walked Aybar but got Akanori Iwamura to ground out to short, ending the inning.

Ironically, it was the most obvious move to the bullpen of the night that backfired on Joe Girardi. Phil Hughes was given the ball to start the 8th inning and was taken deep on his very first pitch to Jason Bartlett, a no-doubt shot to left field. It was Hughes' first blown lead as a relief pitcher. He gave up a single to the next batter but induced a flyball and a double play grounder to get out of the inning.

Even though lefty sidearmer Randy Choate has massive platoon splits, he was left in to face Derek Jeter in the bottom half of the inning. Jeter ripped one to right, but Gabe Kapler was standing right where it was headed. Johnny Damon then dragged a surprise bunt towards first base that got past Choate and looked to be a single until Choate flipped it to first with his glove, beating Damon by a half of a step.

The score remained knotted at 2 when Mariano Rivera took the hill for the top of the 9th. Mo knocked the Rays down 1-2-3, setting the stage for the Yankees 13th walk off win of the year.

Before his massive blast off of David Price in the second inning, Nick Swisher hadn't hit a home run at Yankee Stadium since June 8th. He had hit only three there all season. He had hit only one other walk off jack in his career. But he lifted his second round-tripper of the night just barely over the right field wall, and continued along with the obligatory jog around the bases, helmet toss and pie in the face. Predicatably giddy, Swish had a giant smile on his face right on through the post game interviews on TV.

Maybe it was the spunky newcomer conquering the demons that had sapped his power at home all year. More likely though, it was a statistical correction that Swisher's 25th and 26th homers on the year were lofted into the New York City night. Either way, it was just another game that the Yankees could have easily lost but seemed destined to win.

Murphy's Game

Here are a few things some moron wrote on the internet in the past 24 hours:

• "Teixeria's glove probably helps, but Jeter has never made many throwing errors. He is on pace for 5 this year and has averaged 6.5 per season since 2001. His arm isn't the issue."
  
  
• About Scott Kazmir: "I would be surprised if he went more than 6 innings though, because he's only done it three times this year and the Yanks tend to work the count."
  
  
• About CC Sabathia: "Historically a second half pitcher, now is the time of year that the big fella tends to find his stride. He's thrown 14 innings since the All-Star Break, allowed 3 runs and accumulated two wins. He was just getting warmed up before.

If only Derek Jeter hadn't made a throwing error, Scott Kazmir didn't make it into the 8th inning and CC Sabathia didn't get bounced in the 5th after giving up 5 runs, I would have been right about all of those!

You can't get all the breaks in baseball and I guess if you could control it, you'd have an 11 game stretch were more everything goes right and then load all your bad luck into one game when every single event subject to chance blows up in your face.

The Yanks didn't help their cause either by making two errors that went in the scorebook, and a few more they slipped under the table.

In addition to Jeter's throwing error, A-Rod launched one into the stands in the 3rd inning which allowed Carl Crawford score and left Evan Longoria standing on second with no one out. Incredibly, Joe Maddon had his clean up hitter, Ben Zobrist bunt Longoria over to third only to be stranded there by a Pat Burrell strikeout and a Carlos Pena grounder. Seeing this amazingly weak managerial move by Joe Maddon backfire on him was pretty much the only bright spot of this game for me.

Hideki Matsui had a baserunning gaffe in the fourth after the he drove in a run with a double. He took a wide turn thinking he could advance to second base, but Dioner Navarro read the play perfectly and picked him off.

Nick Swisher attempted a catch barreling into foul territory in the 5th but dropped it, and since his foot was in fair territory when he touched the ball, it was ruled a fair ball. Zobrist advanced to third on the play and it wasn't scored an error. An inning later he let a ball roll past him down the rightfield line allowing Jason Bartlett to score. No "E" on that one, either.

The Rays' defense was the polar opposite. Carl Crawford seemingly covered almost every inch of left field, B.J. Upton nabbed a deep liner and Jason Barlett looked slick at shortstop. The Yanks hit into double plays in both the 8th and 9th innings. It just wasn't their day.

As noted above, it wasn't really my day either. This is one of those games where you take your lumps and move on. You hope you used up all your bad juju at once and get back at it in the morning.