Sweep by BoSox on Girardi's Shoulders

Thursday, the Red Sox capped off their third series sweep of the Yankees this season, winning 4 - 3 and increasing their season series lead to 8 - 0. It looked liked the Yankees might actually salvage a win, leading 3 - 1 in the bottom of the eighth, until CC Sabathia, already at 106 pitches for the night, started the inning. Seventeen pitches later, the game was all but over. It was the last of many questionable calls by Girardi over the course of the series. The first puzzling move was switching AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte's starts earlier in the week, allowing Pettitte to pitch against the Tampa Rays at Yankee Stadium on Monday and giving Burnett the series opener against the Red Sox on Tuesday in Fenway. While neither pitcher has been even close to dominant in recent weeks, the move seemed like an unnecessary shuffle, especially considering Burnett gave up 8 earned runs in 5 innings his previous trip to Boston. Pettitte gave up 3 earned runs in 6 innings. What truly bogglesthe mind is this: why is Girardi playing musical mounds with two pitchers who have been reasonably effective when Chien-Ming Wang is setup to blow the middle game of the Red Sox series? Is the big pitching concern of the week whether Pettitte or Burnett started on Tuesday or whether Wang actually should have pitched in Boston on Wednesday? Where does the actual problem lie? It was another move in what is becoming Girardi's hallmark: over-managing. Joltin' Joe has a penchant for over-thinking the game and trying to out-smart situations. It happens often in the management of players like it did this week with Pettitte and Burnett. Leaving spring training, Girardi "awarded" the right field job to Xavier Nady over Nick Swisher, a proclamation that left many confused. Neither player presented a great advantage from a defensive standpoint and Swisher held tremendous advantage as a switch hitter with a high on-base percentage. Most thought a platoon type situation was in order, but Girardi needed to assign roles. Swisher exploded, Nady tanked and went on the DL. Equally confusing has been Girardi's management of the bullpen. In 2008, the Yankees went into the season with two rookie pitchers, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy. Both hurlers were on innings limits and some growing pains were expected. It would have been reasonable for Girardi to break spring training with a long reliever in the pen, but he declined. Yankee starters had a 5,17 earned run average over the first month of the season, averaging 5 innings per start. The bullpen pitched almost 42 percent of the innings in March and April, compared to only 33 percent in June. Rather than fill that need with a long man, Girardi put Ross Ohlendorf to work, throwing him 20 innings in 10 appearances in April with four appearances of three innings or more, despite the fact that Ohlendorf had pitched less than five innings in five appearances in spring training. Not surprisingly, Ohlendorf's ERA balooned as his the season went on, only to show signs of settling when kept to shorter appearances. These types of questionable decisions with the pitching staff have been the exact opposite of the expectations brought by the hiring of Joe Girardi and Dave Eiland as his pitching coach. Eiland's reputation as a pitching mechanic and pitch count monger preceded him, leaving many to believe the ideal situation for the Yankees many young guns was having their former Scranton pitching coach make the trip to the bigs with them. That confidence is basically gone. Eiland's mastery has done little to get Chien-Ming Wang pieced back together again. AJ Burnett, a fragile commodity to say the least, has himself touched 123 pitches this season. Even Joba, while pitching better than league average, has seen his walk and home run rates increase significantly this year. The questions don't end at pitching. The Yankees have 19 sacrifice bunts this season. They had 31 all of last year. The Yankees lead the American League in runs scored per game. They're seccond to the Red Sox in on-base percentage and first in slugging percentage. In short, this team is hitting and is hitting well. There is no reason for Melky Cabrera, Nick Swisher, Johnny Damon or Derek Jeter to be bunting. A few times this year, Girardi has inserted Brett Gardner as a pinch runner. Gardner can run like the wind and has stolen 11 of 13. Before Gardner even gets a chance to use his wheels, Girardi lays down a bunt, wastes an out, and moves Gardner to second. The move defies any logic and practically negates losing a player off the bench just to play small ball. The question we have to ask about Girardi is this: has he cost the Yankees games? It's a tough question to ask and an even tougher one to answer. It's easy to treat decisions as poor when we have the benefit of hindsight, but in many cases, these decisions looked bad in foresight as well. It's reasonable to think that Girardi's love of the sacrifice over the last few weeks may have cost the Yankees a couple of runs. In a game like Thursday's in Boston, that run may have made all the difference. Girardi has proven to be not nearly as shrewd as we originally thought. He has shown some consciousness of numbers and may have even learned from his rainout mistakes in Florida. But he has also shown that he thinks he can win games from the bench. For a team stacked with the talent that the Yankees have, that's an extra player they do not need.