Why did Wang come out so early? 86 pitches!?!

I realize he gave up the long homer, but he could have finished the inning. It seems like every time I see Mike Myers face a LH, he either gives up a hit or a walk.

Letting Proctor hit???? Are you nuts?

Bunting Abreu with ARod on deck? How is that intelligent? What do you know, he hit a double.

No Mo? Did Joe not want to win?

Am I misinterpreting anything?

Did I miss anything?

One more thing...

(Not Joe) 17 hits and 5 walks and only 5 runs!

Alex, your headline made me laugh for some reason.

My gripe with Torre's managing style is that he doesn't seem to have a contingency plan. He empties his bullpen in the 7th and it's fine as long as nothing ever goes wrong. You end up with Proctor pitching three innings and even batting.

I read a recap of yesterday's game where it said that everybody expected the Yankees to win when Rodriguez hit the game-trying homerun. I never expected the Yankees to win. One reason is because I knew Mariano would never get into the game. But also because extra-inning games seem to go to the home team ... though I have no statistical proof of this.

I'm not sure why the Giants would get so much credit for continuing to play baseball. They're supposed to give up because an opponent hits a ninth-inning homerun?

1 Pete Abraham said his fingernail was acting up again.

If that is true, it appears to be a recurring problem. If that is true, and there's no way of fixing it, we can kiss October baseball goodbye.

Jeter running into outs all over the place? He's practically Torre's son. Can't Torre do anything? What the hell's the matter with Joe?

And one of our most reliable RBI guys, Matsui, striking out with bases loaded, one out. Can't Torre do anything? What the hell's the matter with Joe?

And not bringing in Mo (even though EDSP was pitching fine) just because he was the last guy in the BP, on the road, in an extra inning game. What the hell's the matter with Joe?

And Cairo can't make that play up-the-middle. A manager is supposed to motivate his players. What the hell's the matter with Joe?

And trying to move over a runner, with a guy who has been taking terrible swings of late, with your best player on deck, behind by one run? Has ANY manager EVER done that before? What the hell's the matter with Joe?

And just how many guys did Torre leave on base? Doesn't he want to win? No. Torre does NOT want to win. (We won't mention walking 3 batters in a critical situation).

What the hell's the matter with Joe Torre? Doesn't he know he's got 25 guys on this team waiting for him to come through?

Hope Jeter's playing today, lineup's awful short without him. If Cairo bats second, Torre may incur my displeasure...

Wnags fingernail was acting up again? Jesus!
What the hell's the matter with Torre!

I think it would be really funny if all players joined A-God and boycotted the HR Derby.

4 Of course the players deserve most of the blame for yesterday's game and the entire subpar season. On the other hand, what is Torre paid $7M to do? Just sit there and come up with funny nicknames?

His managerial moves yesterday weren't bad because they didn't work. They were bad because they were bad.

On a side note, I hope he's kidding when he says that Clemens didn't have time to warm up. Clemens could have been warming up for as long as he wanted. Torre was unaware that Proctor was due up?

6 Give it a break. Sure, a bunch of Yankees sucked yesterday. But you act as if he's never, ever at fault.

3, 6 How about:

1. Not emptying your BP in the 6th inning?

2. Going to Mo in a tie game immediately. He pitches 2 innings and you still have Proctor in the pen. This is called using your best reliever before you lose.

3. How about not bunting Abreu in the 10th (11th?). Even if it succeeded that would have meant an IBB to A-Rod. So you give up an out and take the bat out of the hands of the best hitter in baseball.

There's more.

Look, no one is saying that with these moves the team would have won, but a managers job is to give his team the best chance of winning. Torre failed to do that.

10 That should be emptying in the 7th inning, sorry.

9 Look, while I like Torre as our manager, and think very few could stand the heat of the NY/Steinbrenner kitchen, I know he is not a good tactician.

However, there is SOOOOO much we don't know, yet we are always crying for his head. When Wang was pulled the first time because of his fingernail, people here were screaming. Of course, we didn't KNOW there was a problem.

And it has happened many times. It's only because now we get some insider new from PeteAbe, that we can go 'Oh... gee...'.

Torre ain't a great manager, but he is at least THERE, on the field, talking to his players and coaches (and sometimes the FO).

I give Torre credit for what he does, which is keep our clubhouse a sane, professional, balanced place. I do NOT give him credit for winning 4 rings. The players did that.

At the same time, even with 'questionable' moves, it is the players that win or lose these games. I don't know for sure when what Toore does is bad or good, given that there is so much information I don't have. But I do know when we go 1 for 10 with RISP. I do know when we don't score with 2 men on and no out.

Torre plays a very minor role in these games. I am just tried of the tons of blame I hear here on a daily basis. It reminds me of when the press blamed ARod for loses when other guys left 10 LOB.

I'm sorry. I'm reacting because it smacks of scapegoating.

4-12 in one run games. The worst in the majors. Tells me the bullpen sucks although yesterday you'd think with so many hits and errors they could have scored like 11 runs. Trade the entire bullpen to a contender for a young catcher. Move Posada to First base and throw in the towel for this season.

12 I don't care for Torre's bullpen management, and he seems to leaving his NL roots further and further behind, based on some of his odd tactics (or lack of tactics) in interleague games lately. It seems like he used to be more savvy in these situations in years past, but that's just a feeling.

But I'm also tired about how when anything goes wrong, he's problem number 1. I guess it's to be expected when we've now lost 22 out of 28 games decided by 2 runs or less, but yesterday was on the players, AFAIK. All those batters coming up empty with runners left on base, and a guy who throws 96 and can't get one over the plate...those are the guys that aren't doing the job.

I wasn't able to watch the game yesterday, but as I was reading the game recap on mlb.com, I came across how Scott Proctor was pitching in his third inning in the bottom of the tenth. And I thought, "well, that means Mo probably didn't pitch." Sure enough, clicking over to the box score I was right. And PeteAbe says that Clemens (?!?) was warming up in the bullpen, and not the best closer of all time. Completely predictable, and completely baffling.

There appear to be many many reasons why the Yankees lost the game. But running a setup man out there for his third inning with your closer still on the bench is obviously very wrong.

Meanwhile, seven of A-Rod's 28 homers have come in the ninth inning. I will now be taking written apologies from those who doubted him. HA!

I jsut hate opening the Times and other papers and reading that line that I feel I have read so many times before in so many situations "Mariano Rivera was being saved for a possible one inning save situation." AAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

Its becoming the A-Rod career tour. Every city, the announcers speculate on why they would love ot have A-Rod, and then A-Rod executes his audition above and beyond what anyone could expect, its just silly.

Let's put it this way: If A-Rod plays this way all year (doubtful), and the Yanks still area .500 team or so, does he get the mvp? The two possible aruments would be for Ordonez and the not a playoff team, but when you are talking about value, is there anyone who has done more for their team this year than A-Rod? Think of this team without him, and thats a scary thought...

12, 13, 14 Their pathetic record in close games suggests three things to me: 1] ineffective bullpen, 2] bad luck, 3] poor tactics by the manager (which will be accentuated in close games rather than blowouts). I suspect it's a lot of all three, so Torre should not be above at least some criticism.

13 If you're gonna hang the season, forgot Posada at 1B. Move him more and more into the DH spot, call up Shelley Duncan for 1B and give him a couple months to prove he is Matt Stairs (fluky late bloomer).

I still want to know who the hell the outfield coach on the team is.

12 it would be nice if the hitters could get a hit every time there are runners in scoring position. it would be nice if the pitchers could hold a lead. but there is an opposing team trying its best to keep those things from happening. on the other hand, joe torre's moves are DECISIONS, not at bats. when he makes a wrong decision, it is all on him, it isn't because the other team was better. it's because he made the wrong move. and he has made so many wrong moves over the years it's absurd. not just when they're losing. a bad move is a bad move, whether it works out or not. fine, wang had a fingernail problem so he had to be taken out. but that's one move. why would he bat proctor in the 12th inning when he had already pitched 2 innings? that's one of the worst moves i've seen this year. why would he keep his best pitcher on the bench and wait for a save situation that becomes increasingly unlikely as proctor pitches more and more? these are bad moves, not poor execution, and there's a very big difference.

17 arod is the most valuable player in the league this year, unless you define valuable in a misleading and incorrect way. value is value wherever that value is.

I've now succumbed to the post-Ha realization:

Any team giving 5 AB's to Cairo at 1B doesn't deserve to win squat.

Even with the power of Ha!

I want Cashman's head.

15 I hereby concede that I no longer doubt Alex Rodriguez. He's a different player and I'm thrilled of it.

It is still the case, however, that I find it agonizing to watch his ab when he's confused up there.

I never wanted him on the team and I'd have been pleased to see him go elsewhere but I must say, the guy's grown on me. Lo and behold, I've formed an emotional connection to him I never would have thought possible, perhaps precisely because he's struggled so mightily in the past.

Ha!

19 They don't have one anymore after they let Mazilli go.

21 I suspect Torre is the one giving Cairo ABs at first base. But Cahman should be punished for 1] signing Minky and 2] even putting Cairo on the roster (he should know that Torre can't be trusted).

--------OPS ------ Last 7
Canoe- 0.736 --- .720
Melky- 0.684 ---- .985 (MELKY!!!!!)
Abreu- 0.719 --- .522
Damon- 0.687 -- .539
Matsui-- 0.829 -- .555
Cairo ------------ .710 (HOF HOF)
1Base (ugly)
ARod ------------ 1.727 (AGOD!)

MoRiv 4.23 era
Moose 5.10 era
Roger 4.86 era

If you believe VORP, Magglio's ahead of A-God.

Jeter and Posada are 11 and 12, FWIW.

13 If we're going to scrap the season I'd much rather give that playing time to actual prospects than an experiment to see if Duncan is the exception to the rule.

7 My wife suggested the other day that all the teams in the league should just through slow meatballs over the plate to Bonds, to make a mockery of the so-called "March to History." Sort of an anti-boycott.

21 Please read 25 and tell me Cairo is the reason we are losing

28 Fair enough. What prosepct(s) did you have in mind?

23 Perhaps we should remedy that. Maybe then Melky Cabrera wouldn't have been playing in San Jose last night.

26 pretty hard to figure out why when you look at their numbers. when you put in defense it isn't all that close, is it? not that i've seen ordonez all that much, but his value as a rf can't be nearly what arod's has been as an excellent 3b.

And who exactly on the team can be traded and for what?

Yesterday was just painful to watch. If there's one thing that makes me start throwing things at the TV, it's the inability of a reliever to throw strikes. Watching Bruney walk someone with two men on and Bonds on deck was just excruciating. How do you get to the ML without being able to throw a fastball for a strike when you have to?!?!

The one shining light in this season has been watching A-Rod make a lot of people eat their words. He is having just about the most remarkable season I have ever seen. Too bad it looks like we're going to waste it and lose him at the end of the year.

31 The other Duncan's really the only 1B prospect in the system above A ball.

30 For this week he hasn't been the worst hitter on the team. Using him at 1B is still a disaster, and longer he is there, the more this will be exposed. I'm not going to be convinced otherwise, until I look up at the end of the season, 300 or 400 ABs later, and Cairo is sporting an OPS of .750 or .800.

29 is that like when you're losing in a game and start to give up so you can be like "well i wan't even trying"? in an era when many hitters and pitchers alike were on performance enhancing drugs, bonds was the best. whether you can compare him to hank aaron is another story, but at least for the time that i've been watching baseball, he's been the best. let's not make a mockery of that.

30I'll never understand the "well, everyone else is supposed to be good, so they should cover up this hideous bat" argument. I didn't understand it with Enrique Wilson. I didn't understand it with Bubba Crosby. I didn't under stand it with Andy Phillips. I didn't understand it with Mink the Stink. Putting a player who is going to give you the offensive equivalent of a season wide slump into a batting order removes the luxury of occasional slumps from everyone else.

36 Ech. Well scratch that. Call up Shelley, let him fail on his own merits and get it over with.

36 The problem with playing Duncan is that he isn't even hitting in the minors, so I'm not what it proves to bring him into the majors and expect to him make the adjustment. His almost certain failure will not prove anything one way or the other. S. Dunca, on the other hand, as proven he can hit at AAA--the only thing left to prove is if can make the next adjustment or if he is at best a AAAA player.

If E. Duncan had actually any sort of real track record in the minors, I would agree with you. But this season might be the perfect time to go the other way and throw all the AAAA players against the wall and see if any stick.

39 did you hear when michael kay called enrique a "big part of the yankee team" in a recent game?

42 Well, physically, he was a large man.

43 the closest he ever came to helping the yankees was when he almost fell on his way home on the knoblauch play in game 2 of the 98 alcs

39 I remember some guy named Rey Ordonez who was so much fun to watch at SS, but made Wil Nieves look like Ted Williams at the plate. Found his way out of baseball pretty quick because of it, too. Even Omar Vizquel, who usually flirts with the Mendoza line for half the season, can come up with a hit or two in the right situation. The "defensive catalyst" argument never seems to last. I'll take Adam Dunn, who hasn't even played a game at first yet this season, striking out 5,000 times a year over Cairo.

38 This whole generation has made a mockery of the game, at least in terms of the historic value of teh numbers. But worse than that, announcers still ooh and ahh every time anothr obvious steroid freak smacks another ball over the fence in another bandbox bal park. And worse than that, the league (and the networks) subject me to a barrage of clips and ads and crawlers and sound bites playing up how this or that steroid freak will ecclipse some other record. To champion records with counting stats that have fundamentally perverted by this generation is a mockery of history; it is farse.

So, give Bonds the MVP and vote him into the HOF for being the best of generation. But celebrate his inevitable record, which is an insult ot Hank Aaron's accomplishments. No way.

30 In a 1 run loss Cairo went 0 for 5 as the 1B (the only starter without a hit). It's a absolute fuckin disgrace that he's on the team let alone the starting 1B.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the moves you said Cashman was making before the season.

Read and understand 39.

46 Someone wasn't listening to Ken Singleton the other night

44 And by making sure Jeter would be in the lineup 160 times during the season even if he had two broken legs because it was better than the Enrique alternative.

48 What did he say?

46 and who exactly is an obvious steroid freak? giambi? sheffield? matt lawton? arod? clemens? pedro? mariano? bernie williams?

37 Or look at:

Miguel Cairo:
2005: 64 OPS+
2006: 59 OPS+
2007: 63 OPS+

Career: 75 OPS+

The guy belongs nowhere near a major league roster. Instead, he's starting game after game for the NY Yankees.

51 Come on now, I'm not going to play this game.

Magglio: .381 .457 .653 1.110--- That's some scary numbers.

37 Look... I agree it's a bummer having Cairo at 1st. But there ate 6 starting, namebrand 1st basemen in MLB with sub .750 OPS. We also know Cairo is the weakest MLB hitter on our team. But he hasn't been terrible, runs well, has played great D. So considering we are 'stuck' with him for now, it hasn't been bad. I would say he is the LEAST of our current problems.

If you look at the 2007 OPS in 25, we are missing over .400 pts from what would be average for these guys. And we are missing Giambi.

Think how far below .500 we would be without ARod.

50 He stopped just short of calling Bonds a cheating, two timing, gassed to the gills tax cheat that should be strung up.

Well, not quite. But Kay was beating around the bush about whether players respect Bonds and whether they consider the record tainted and Singleton said, IIRC, "I absolutely consider it tainted and I don't appreciate the way he has done this at all"

I know Mo should pitch more in critical situations, but I think Joe was correct in leaving Proctor in for the 13th. The away team needs two innings when their taking the field with the game tied. Mo had pitched the day before and, I believe, would not have been very effective for a second inning. Maybe Clemens should have entered the game, but as the bottom of the 13th began, one inning of Proctor and one of Rivera looked to me like the best option.
(And of course Proctor pitched well -- the last two hits of the game were lucky, weak hits.)

54 I'd consider intentionally having a really bad hitter start at first high on the list of our problems. It puts more pressure on everyone else to make up for the lack of production.

And that counts for when Phillips starts as well. And when The Stink comes back. He irritates me more than the other two for some reason. Possibly because he seems to think he's good.

56 Agreed, to a point. Rivera would only have been available for one inning because Torre burned him for two innings the day before, in a game where the team had a four run lead at the start of the eighth inning and relief pitchers had 2 ABs. So, Torre helped create his limited options yesterday