Girardi’s Peculiar Lineup

The lineup against Oliver Perez:

Damon, LF
Jeter, SS
A-Rod, 3B
Posada, 1B
Betemit, 2B
Melky, CF
Molina, C
Christian, RF
Rasner, SP

Girardi’s lineup for today’s game was less than stellar on paper and it truly performed that way when facing Oliver Perez and the rest of the Mets. In fact, that lineup made no sense at all. Now, while I understand that all major league players need a day off, what I don’t understand is why Joe Girardi decided to sit Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi AND Robinson Cano, all in one game. Why do that, seriously?

Let’s look at the numbers for a second.

Jason Giambi is hitting .260 with a 1.015 OPS against lefties this year. He has a .500 AVG against Oliver Perez. Robinson Cano is hitting .281 with a .756 OPS against lefties this year. He has a .400 AVG against Oliver Perez. Bobby Abreu is hitting .316 with an .853 OPS against lefties this year. He has a .000 AVG against Oliver Perez (10 AB’s, 4 BB, 5 K’s). So, what have we learned here?

Joe Girardi could have done something differently with the lineup and it’s not merely a hindsight sort of critique. Giambi and a hot-hitting Cano, in particular, have solid numbers against Perez, so why sit both of those guys? Why not sit Abreu, then sit Cano or Giambi on separate days? Isn’t the job of the manager to be somewhat creative with off-days for his players? Shouldn’t a smart manager stagger his off-days instead of sitting 3 of his regular starters in one game (starters with solid numbers against lefties this year)? How do you think Derek Jeter, A-Rod and Damon felt with this lineup? Do you think that they thought they had their best opportunity to win with this configuration? I doubt it (no matter what they may say).

This is another frustrating Joe Girardi move. With the Yankees already in a significant AL East hole, Girardi doesn’t have the flexibility to sit 3 of his best players (in a game where the pitcher hits!). The righty-lefty explanations don’t hold up with the numbers for the season or the history had with starter, Oliver Perez. While the Yankees may have lost this one today, Joe Girardi deserves the most blame (not the hitters), as he did not give his team the chance to win with this strange lineup.

Jeter Supports Chacon

From the NY Times:

Derek Jeter said he would vouch for Shawn Chacon’s character if the Yankees considered bringing back Chacon after his release by the Houston Astros on Thursday. The move came a day after Chacon admitted to The Houston Chronicle that he had grabbed General Manager Ed Wade by the neck and thrown him to the ground in an argument.

“Chac’s a friend of mine,” Jeter said. “I see Chac in the off-season. I wouldn’t have a problem with him. I think people need to find out all the details. Yeah, it doesn’t look good, doesn’t sound good, but I don’t know what happened. I can’t picture it happening, knowing him like I know him.”

Chacon, a former Yankee, was 2-3 with a 5.04 earned run average in 15 starts and had recently been demoted to the bullpen.

After seeing what Sidney Ponson did for the Yankees on Friday, does anyone else get the feeling that the Yanks will scoop up Chacon (he’s on waivers)? I mean, it’s a low-risk move and if he brings even an ounce of the magic he had in 2005, I’m sure fans would be happy with that.

Santana Who?

Let me say that Andy Pettitte has truly stepped up in Chien-Ming Wang’s absence and has totally delivered ace-like performances for his team this month. Beating Johan Santana is fairly significant and symbolic as well, especially since the Yanks brought Pettitte back in the offseason ($16 million), which allowed Brian Cashman to cite financial reasons (to Hank) for not bringing in Santana. Without Pettitte’s strong outings (consecutive outings at that), the Yankees would not be a mere 5 games out of the AL East throne (the Rays and Sox both lost last night). He deserves a lot of credit for what he has done, especially when you consider that at the beginning of this month, Pettitte gave up 14 ER against KC and Minnesota (two back-to-back starts). Since then, he’s thrown 4 quality starts and has only given up 3 ER.

That’s simply remarkable.

Also, credit the bullpen for preserving the W in yesterday’s Met matchup. Jose Veras has slowly solidified his position as an integral part of the Yankee bullpen and seems to have locked up the 7th inning as he has pitched particularly well in high leverage situations (he has a 0.73 ERA in his last 11 appearances). With Dave Robertson’s call up (74 K’s in 51.2 IP) the Yankees are making strides in creating a formidable bullpen, even with Kyle Farnsworth’s enigmatic performances. Most of the lackluster arms have now been sent down (Ohlendorf was sent down and will work as a starter in order to refine his pitches) or have been relegated to the deepest annals of the NY bullpen (LaTroy, meet Edwar, Edwar, meet Latroy). After the first game of Friday’s doubleheader, I think that prompted the Yanks to make some decisions on these guys and now the bullpen picture, while still in transition a bit, is becoming clearer.

Finally, I have to do a quick rant before I end my post. Today, I was unable to watch the Yankee game, despite being an MLBTV owner (the internet package, where you watch games online). Granted, today’s game was on FOX, so I put on FOX hoping to see a pitcher’s duel. Instead, what I witnessed was a Chicago showdown between the White Sox and the Cubs. While that was a great game to watch, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I wasn’t able to watch the game. Why not allow west coasters to watch the game on MLBTV? It’s not like it was showing on FOX for us and I pay a monthly fee in order to watch NYY games because I’m a “displaced” fan. In anger, I called the MLBTV people and I was told by one of their workers that the reason the game was blacked out was because the teams want people to go to the stadiums to watch their games (huh?). After that strange response, I asked him why, if I pay a monthly fee to basically see Yankee games, why am I being deprived of that service today? He stumbled with his words a bit and then told me that I can always watch the game on “a pay-per-view”. This bothered me even more, because, one, it made no sense, and two, why should I have to pay more money to see a “nationally” televised ballgame when I’m already paying to see it every month?

Argh, that was frustrating. So, in the end, I thanked the worker for his time (…), then I had to stick with MLB’s Gameday feature, which is like watching a Bingo game between a group of corpses (you know you enjoy this analogy). Okay, rant over.