"Now, what is this site about, how Joe Torre ruined pitchers' arms? Is that it?"
-Michael Kay, August 18, 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

This one is on Girardi

330ce6f5c1aa8e5b563c38a52689472c-getty-85134970_nl002 Can someone explain to me why Joe Girardi took out Damaso Marte after recording two outs on 11 pitches in the eighth inning?

Exactly.

It didn’t make sense at the time and it still doesn’t, after The Mexecutioner struck out the side to record the save and prevent a sweep.

Girardi used three pitchers in the eighth to record three outs.  If you want to remove Marte, put in Mariano Rivera.  He didn’t pitch yesterday.

Billy Butler, a righty, came into to pinch hit for Mike Jacobs, a lefty, when Jose Veras was brought into to pitch.  Butler only has one hit this season thus far.

Following Butler was Brayan Pena.  Pena's splits against lefties and righties aren’t all that different.  Yes, Pena hits slightly worse against righties (.222 vs. .234), but that difference is negligible and the sample sizes on both sides are awfully small.  And it doesn’t mean anything when your right-hander, Veras, is wild as can be. 

And I forgot to mention this originally: in 2008, righties hit only .196 against Marte, as compared to the .247 lefties hit against him!

And please, don’t even bring up the "Joba to the pen” argument.  He was decent today and will only get better.  The ‘pen would’ve held this lead if Girardi didn’t turn into Tony LaRussa before our eyes.

I’ll leave it at this: there was no reason to make all of these moves.  Marte wasn’t struggling and it wasn’t a tight game at the end of the year.  Marte started the inning; let him finish it.

I’m too angry to write a full recap.

(Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/Getty Images)

6 comments:

Andrew Kneeland said...

Girardi should take a lesson from Fredi Gonzalez in confidence in your pitching. Three pitchers for three outs in that situation is ridiculous.

Lenny Neslin said...

WTF was he thinking?

Anonymous said...

what's funnier is that if his plan had actually worked, bringing in veras
we all would have been comparing him to the great billy martin
nevertheless, this loss is on coke

Anonymous said...

Simple- Butler kills lefties. You have a deep bullpen, you use it there to get the platoon advantage, especially when it is so pronounced.

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