Girardi Bends The Rules, Probably Didn't Have To

Good morning, Fackers. One of the details I didn't cover in last night's recap (which I will attribute to the combination of the extreme heat and my lack of an air conditioner) was that the Yankees tried to pull a bit of a fast one to begin the bottom of the ninth inning.

Since Nick Swisher's go-ahead home run came with two outs in the top half of the inning and Mark Teixeira made an out three pitches later trying to leg out a double, Mariano Rivera had barely any time to warm up before he came in to protect the one run lead.

With the lefty Justin Morneau up and Andy Pettitte having thrown only 94 pitches, it seemed plausible that Girardi would let Andy stay in for at least one more batter. However, he let Pettitte take the mound and throw his warm up pitches only to remove him without facing a batter when the inning was about to resume, thereby securing an extra eight or so pitches for Rivera.

When it happened last night, Matt voiced his objections on The Twitters, saying:

This is a pet peeve of mine. If a pitcher takes the mound at the start of an inning, he should have to face 1 batter unless there's a PH.

It turns out that Ron Gardenhire is of the same opinon (via BBTF):

Asked if he ever thought Pettitte actually would throw a pitch in the ninth, Gardenhire said, "No, he wasn't going to throw a pitch. That was kind of tired, to tell you the truth. You don't know normally get that long between innings to do all that, but we know what's going on there."

"That's a situation Major League Baseball needs to take care of when stuff like that happens. You don't have a guy ready in the bullpen, if your starter goes out there, he should have to face a hitter. That's just the way it should be. If you don't get a guy up, that's the way it should be, unless the other team makes a change."

"But that's not what lost the game for us. That's stuff that just gets old right there."

This is somewhat similar to the issue that Joe Girardi protested the game against the Red Sox about. The difference is that Girardi was taking advantage of a loophole in the rules whereas the Sox didn't have any ulterior motives but made a slight procedural error.

I think this transaction speaks to a larger issue, though. The one of Girardi feeling like he absolutely needed Rivera for all three outs despite the fact that he pitched earlier in the day. Would it have been the worst thing in the world if Pettitte, who had pitched pretty damn well and was still very effective in the inning before, faced one left handed batter and gave Mo the appropriate amount of time to get ready?

I often struggle to understand Girardi's moves as a manager but I've found one tendency that he is incredibly consistent in displaying. If the game is tight, he will exert every ounce of control over it that he can. Like in the seventh inning of the game Javy Vazquez started against the Mets when Joe went through three pitchers before they got two outs despite the fact that there were still two more innings left to pitch. Just yesterday, he didn't want to announce who would be pitching when the first game resumed because then the Twins could have... um... I don't know, done something with that information, maybe?

Honestly, part of the reason that this kind of stuff frustrates me is that I hate commercial breaks and Girardi makes so damn many mid-inning pitching changes it's like he has a clause in his contract that gives him a percentage of the ad revenue. Those are usually the times when the game is on the line and we all have to sit through two minutes and thirty seconds of shitty advertising because the other team's backup catcher is left handed.

Clearly his bullpen management has been one of Girardi's strengths in his time with the Yankees but that's partially because he has Rivera as a rock at the end of it. What's going to happen when someone less trustworthy is responsible for nailing down saves? Will he still sit on his hands and watch things unfold?

During that game against the Mets I likened Girardi with a slim lead to a kid holding a pet rabbit. He holds it like a vise grip because he doesn't want to let it get away. But sometimes he ends up strangling it in the process. You want your manager to do what he can to win every single game, but was it necessary to rush Rivera and make sure that he was in there for all three outs given that he had pitched earlier in the day? If there's any chance that he's nursing an injury or could have hurt himself as a result, the answer is obviously "no".

Feedbackatcha

On Monday, we asked you Fackers for some feedback in hopes that we could better align the content of this blog with your preferences as the readers of it. Most of the time, blogging is a one way interaction. The writer churns out content while the audience takes it in. Sure, commenting is an option, but it's only utilized by a small fraction of the readership and it typically focuses on the subjects within a post and not the overall style and approach of the site.

In principle, I think it's better for the parties involved in an interaction to know what's going on, so we want to give you an idea of what you can expect from us in plain terms. I'm going to go through a few of the things that were brought up in that last post and subsequently in the comments regarding the way we do things around here. I'm sure there are some of you who could care less about this meta-bullshit, but for those who do, here we go:

1. First off, thanks to everyone who responded. It's always good to hear from some of the people who read the site but don't usually comment. We like being reminded that you are more than a bunch of numbers on Google Analytics. Hopefully we can build up the community around here a little more when the regular season rolls around and increase the depth of the discussion in the comments.
   
   
2. Bad news for those who said they enjoy the humor they get here. All jokes, sarcasm, witticisms, bad puns, photoshops, wisecracking, mock-righteous outrage, flippancy, shenanigans, tomfoolery, jocularity, and other various forms of levity are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN FROM NOW ON.
   
   
3. The amount of content - This was the biggest hang up for me, but most of you say you are a lot more concerned with the quality of what is written than the frequency with which it is posted. I, like many bloggers, have a borderline compulsive urge to create new content likely exacerbated by Google Analytics, so it's nice to know that you guys will come back even if we don't post 5 times a day like we did for the better part of last season.
   
   
4. Until the regular season starts, we are going to try to put together at least one post every weekday and aim that for 9 AM. It might not be right on time and there might be additional ones after that or on the weekends, but one every morning seems doable. Hopefully more during the regular season.
   
   
5. As far as our game-to-game coverage, we are going to continue with our song previews. We'll do our best not to repeat the stuff from last year, but we reserve the right to bust out something like "Going Out West" from time to time and avoid out-thinking ourselves.
   
   
6. There were a lot of folks who said they enjoyed them so we are going to keep up our game recaps in some capacity as well. We'll knock out something in essay form if the occasion is called for, but will probably do something shorter like bullet points on most nights. No guarantees on weekends.
   
   
7. Linkarounds will continue. Glad that you guys like them because I look at them to be win-win-win. They're relatively easy to put together, it gives you a lot of optional reading material and also drives a small amount of traffic to the other sites I'm linking to. I might start adding some non-sports like the stuff I share on Google Reader as well, but we'll see what happens.

Okay, that's about it. As always, your inputs are welcome. Leave some comments, send us an email. We'll be around.

Nice Try, Tigers Fans

Pulling the fire alarm is not approprite reaction to your team getting lit up. It's only a figure of speech.