I am not so tough on Cairo though. Tonight illustrated why he is a valuable yet inexpensive player. Should we lose, among others, Cano, Jeter, or even Rodriguez for a period of time, we have a competent cheap replacement.

I actually believe we should send Nieves down, and get Phelps ready to roll to fill in for Jorge. He just doesn't have any value when you weigh his relatively mediocre defense against his horrible hitting. He's 30, been in the minors forever, it just aint going to happen. Posada has played more than 120+ games each of the last six or seven years, and we can always call Nieves back up if need be. We have to find someone viable to pinch hit. Whether we hit the trade market, call someone up, or sign someone from their couch, Doug. M., Cairo, and Nieves are not going to cut it. Most notably because we are going to have to carry a Winnebago full of pitchers all season.

As for the offense I'm not worried about Cabrera. Melky's not a .190 hitter and ARod's not a .390 hitter but the 5.8 runs a game sounds about what to expect in the long run.

Either way, I gotta drop a request for you to try and quote Rocket Man soon - so we can turn this pitching situation right-side out.

Bad pitching and bad defense and no bench. Scary.

Cannot remember a string of losses like this. 5 straight. If A-Rod doesn't create a run in game 1 and hit two walkoffs, we be in bigger dooodooo. Need to get out in the lead and stay there.

Why does Torre have a fetish with 80-pitch outings? Is he trying to make the entire bullpen a bunch of EDSPs? I don't want to see the bullpen throw 700 innings (70 for Mo, 30 for Pettitte on his throw days, and 100 each for the other 6 bullpen guys). That's half of the 1400 innings you'd expect the team to need. Why does Torre seem to want this?

All these bullpen moves, and the crazy pinch hitting and pinch running, reek of over-managing to me. Torre is pressing more than Melky is, and I wish someone would tell him to stop, please.

Is it possible that some of this is coming from saintly bench coach Donnie Baseball, who is, at least in theory, Joe's advisor? I'd prefer to think not, but I've never seen Torre act like this before, so I think its fair to ask what's going on.

I just kept repeating to myself, "Wang was on a pitch count, he was on a pitch count." Otherwise, it's harder to swallow it.

When is the next offday? The bullpen could use a week.

I'd have taken Wang out then as well. His first ML start in a while and it looked like he was losing it a bit, leaving the pitches up in the zone. Vizier got his job done, with an assist from Cairo. 'Twas Myers who didn't do his LOOGY job. Yanks only 4 games out of first, with pitchers starting to come back from the DL.

"There seems to be a little confusion about Chien-Ming Wang.

Joe Torre told us the other day that he didn't think Wang was on on a pitch count. Turns out that Ron Guidry and the medical staff decided he would get 80 pitches. Wang threw 81 pitches on Tuesday night, which is about what you would expect from a starter in his first appearance of the season."

link to lohud blog on sidebar

2 And Vizcaino was on his third night in a row.

10 Familiarity breeds bitch slaps. Myers had faced Crawford the night before. And it's not like he gets by with good stuff. When you're trying to deceive hitters, seeing them often sort of ruins the surprise. What Joe will need to realize this season is that Henn is either an interchangeable option with Myers or simply better.

Sucked to lose yet again, but they play again today.

I've been indifferent to Myers, and his perpetual hangdog expression since he joined the team, but I couldn't get too upset about him last night. My wife felt so sorry for him that I had to empathize.

You're right, Cliff, about how things change so quickly in baseball. They can turn this around fast.

Melky? That's a tough call. As much as Thompson probably deserves the chance to prove himself I think Melky has earned the right to work his way out of a slow start. Give him time.

Melky isn't going to stop pressing by serving as a LIDR on the bench. Too bad they can't undue Thompson's demotion.

When exactly do you expect him to get said time now?

1. Giambi is the full-time DH (i.e., he's not playing first and so doesn't open the DH slot for one of the OF's).

2. The team is struggling. They shouldn't be resting any of the OF's and their offense.

3. Melky isn't hitting and he's not going to get chances to start (see #1 and #2).

When the team is winning, and Melky is hitting, it's easy to rest one OF a week - even then that only equals 3 games started for Melky each week. And if they were willing to put Giambi at 1B, that maybe one more game a week that Melky gets a start.

Now?

Melky will be lucking if he gets 5 plate appearances a week for the next month. He would have been better served in Scranton to be recalled if someone gets hurt.

Melky needs to get straightened out, and riding the bench ain't gonna do it.

Gee... I guess a few people will now have to change their rant from "Fuck Torre, Fire Torre" to "Fuck Guidry, Fire the medical Staff"?

Maybe... maybe people will take this one incident to realize Torre is not responsible for every move, every action, and every natural disaster that we see.

While I like Torre, I confess that so far, there have been many moves I've hated. Can't figure out. But I also understand that many times there is reasoning that I am not always privy too.

It would be nice is we could just eliminate "Fuck Joe Fire Joe"/"Fuck Cashman, Cashman stinks" comments from this blog. It is one thing to have an intellectual discussion and dissection of moves that Joe and Cash make (even though they may be mandated by other factors outside of their authority). It's another thing to CONSTANTLY trash these men, on every thread, after each reliever has a poor game, or player substitution. It's getting old. Write Cashman if you like, but the incessant trashing of Torre/Cashman is beginning to trash this blog.

Is there anyone here who would rather have Phelps play then Minky? Raise your hand. I would. I absolutely would. But I imagine that Minky might have another 300 ABs coming this year. Does this mean I can look forward to 3,625 comments to the nature of just how bad Minky is? How stupid Joe is? How incompetent Cashman is? Just how much do you feel these comments add to the integrity of the Bronx Banter?

How many times in a thread, and how many times in thread after thread, do we have to hear certain people insistently say the same thing, over, and over, and over? Do people understand the difference between a discussion or discourse and a diatribe?

I have been a reader/contributor here since about 4 months before Cliff came on board. I'm guessing thats around 3 years. I have always held the Banter up as having the most intelligent, reasonable and fair comments section in the Yankee blogoshere (to go along with Alex's and Cliff's excellent writing).

But this year something has happened. Yeah, we're losing early games and Torre is befuddling us... but that's not new. Many quality commentors over the past 2 years, for whatever reason, are no longer here. People are openly commenting on how 'hard' reading some of these comments is. There are people who may feel this and say nothing. There are people who may feel this and simply stop coming here. It is obvious I am not the only person saddened by the curent level of the 'dialog' here.

So I have a few suggestion:
1) If you want to "Fuck Torre/Fire Cashman", go to some Red Sox blogs and "Fuck Francona/Fire Theo" instead. If you really need to, throw in a few "Fuck Torre/Fire Cashman"s. Hopefully you will feel better. This kind of 'intellectual statement' is really more appropriate elsewhere.

2) if you are absolutely positive in your views and have no intention whatsoever in modifying them, why come here? There are many other Yankee blogs where this kind of dogmatic/pedantic attitude is appropriate.
There are many blogs that have commenters that are much more knowledgable and have more baseball experience then Joe and Cash.
It's not here. I personally don't confuse my 'opinions' for 'facts'. The Banter is a place to share thoughts and opinions in the hopes of becoming more educated on a variety of issues that surround the Yankees world. If you have nothing to learn, go elsewhere, as you as far too intelligent for us Banterers.

3) If you are frustrated at the Yankees, Joe or Cashman... join the club. But that is not reason to diarrhea over this blog.

4)
a) "Jesus... why would Torre take Giambi out here? There odds of......"
b) "FUCK TORRE! What a jerk! How many times is he going to do the same shit! How come he wants to throw away this game!"
While expressing the same thought, can you see the difference is those 2 statements, and don't understand how differently they effect people reading this blog?

5) It's bad enough I have to listen to our President accuse members of Congress of not being 'loyal Americans'. Do I have to come here to relax, and have people accuse me of not wanting the Yankees to win? Because I don't agree with your opinion? Are there people here who really believe that there are Yankees fans who participate regularly here, who DONT WANT THE YANKEES TO WIN?

6) We have some very witty, intelligent folks here. I certainly can not make comments that are as smart and funny as many I read. But I do TRY AND CONTRIBUTE some thought or opinion that may have value to someone here. There will ALWAYS be posts of frustration. That's part of why we are here. But it would be nice, when possible, for our comments to add something of value to the discussion.

It is up to everyone here to help maintain the quality of this wonder Bronx Banter blog, that Cliff and Alex have worked so hard to create. We owe this to them, and to all the participants here. Many people come here because we feel that this blog operates on a HIGHER LEVEL that other blogs out there. We all have a responsibility to maintain and contribute to this HIGHER LEVEL.

I feel the Bronx Banter is a special place. Please treat it as such.

I apologize for my own diatribe, but it's been brewing for a while. Maybe it is topic for discussion? Maybe the majority disagree? I don't know. But the current discourse have a different 'feel' then those of years past. And I just think it was much better then.

5 It happens. The Yankees lost 6 straight (9 of 10, 11 of 14) in 2005, and 5 straight in 2003. And remember - or try to forget - the end of the 2000 season, when they lost 6 straight, won 1, and lost 7 more. There've also been plenty of times that they've lost 6 of 7, 8 of 10, that sort of thing.

All those years, they ended up doing OK.

I also am getting tired of the Torre-bashing. Not that he should be treated with kid gloves - I've been criticizing him for years. His weaknesses are the same as they've always been - he's a mediocre game manager, it pains him to play youngsters, he values Warriortude over actual performance, and he doesn't really know how to handle time-sharing arrangements well - whether platoons or bullpens.

But people are losing sight of the fact that he has strengths, too. I said yesterday that I think he was crucial to the Yankees' winning last year, and I believe that. And while he has weaknesses, the man's not an idiot; the success over the last decade hasn't all been push-button, not by any means. He can and should be criticized, but I find the condescension a little presumptuous.

I also agree with you about the tone of some posts. One of the great values of this site is that it's never gotten personal. I see some of that creeping in, and that would really be a shame.

The problem with the pitch count explanation is what followed:

1. He brings in Vizcaino (for the third day in a row) to intentionally walk Baldelli and setup the double play.

2. As others have pointed out (the boys at NoMaas are about to have their collective heads explode), if you're going to go through all that, why not just have Wang walk the guy and pitch to one more batter. His arm isn't going to fall off and decisions like that are the manager's perogative. So what he ends the night at ~90 pitches of which four were an intentional walk.

3. He brings in Myers to face Crawford for the second night in a row.

4. As Cliff nicely summarizes, Tea pinch runs for Phleps with Cairo at the plate in the 7th inning. The only way to unravel that dandy of a decision is to put Mfhwdsfik and compunds it by double switching Melky into Phleps spot in the lineup and Mfjdfkl into Damon's slot.

5. In a two run game, the offense sends up Melky, Cano, and Mfwshfjk to end the game with Cairo on deck.

Me, I feel very comfortable calling that a Torre loss. And for all the games Nieves and Mfhdskj have been playing - those to me are Cashman losses.

Oh, and I'm not worried in the least. But the limitations built into the roaster will continue to haunt this team alll season long.

IMHO, the best way to make nonsense go away is to not respond. Its hard to do, but it does work. Not responding is also a proven Sox troll repellent.

I'll cop to pressing the Minky stinks button a few too many times around here, but I've been trying to do it less.

More to your point though -- yesterday I was called "stupid" by a fellow Banterer, and accused by the same Banterer of not wanting the Yanks to win because I expressed my preference that the Yanks not go after Clemens.

It was not the type of dialog I'm used to enjoying here, and I'm sorry I got caught up in it.

For the most part, I think the discourse is still interesting and fun here, but I've also noticed the unappealing rash of meanspirited comments.

Good call on your part to keep the noise in check.

http://tinyurl.com/yolf5a

I've always equated the Cap'n to Lassie...

I too criticize Torre's lack of tactical skills, and his "Belly full of guts" approach to the bench and bullpen. But outside of maybe Davey Johnson, who I think is unavailable (getting ready for the '08 Olympics), I can't think of anyone out there right now who'd be an improvement on Torre. Lots of maybes, but no guarantees.

We're going to find out someday, but I'd rather it not be today.

What would you rather have?

I think what you're losing sight of is: To Banter is to complain, celebrate, bemoan, applaud, debate, discuss, cheer, etc. Me, I react strongly to folks that wish to steer a discussion one way or another.

Sounds like you'd rather strike all the negative stuff and live in a polyanna universe. That level of censorship never benefits a community. Everyone gets different things here. And so long as what they say is respectful of others, then let them say it, and if you don't like it then either ignore it or debate it.

With regards to Torre--yes, I am guilty of piling on. We should all be able to agree that he has his strengths and weaknesses. I will contend, however, that he (like many older coaches) is increasingly patterned in his game-tactical decisions. I will also contend that while the construction of the team has eveolved over the years, his managing has not. Thus, I believe that his blunders--often the same blunders he made in the past--are becoming more frequent and have a worse cumulative effect.

Case in point is his BP use. Pitching the bejeesus out of your number 1 set-up guy is great if he is Mariano Rivera 1996. But just because you strike gold with one or a few players does not mean that the same usage tactics work for all players. (It reminds me of NFL coaches who try to run the "west coast offense" b