Reminds me of Prizzi's Honor:

"Do I ice her? Do I marry her? Which one of dese?"

Dude, that's EXACTLY it. My favorite line from that movie--which is one of the finest films ever directed by someone over 80 years old--is when Kathleen Turner is going on and on about her dead husband Marxie Heller, right before she and Nicholson tie the knot. He turns to the side and and says, "If Marxie Heller is so fuggin smart how come he's so fuggin dead?"

Why? Again Rally-Killer Womack batting second. Beautiful.

Why? Why? Why? Why in the name of the Baseball gods is Joe doing this? He knows that Womack is an out machine. Why does he insist on playing him, much less hitting him 2nd? Hit Bernie 2nd for goodness sake.

Even the "genius" LaRussa went out of his way to tell Michael Kay to say "hi" to Tony. What is it managers see in him?

Tony Woe-is-me just popped up a bunt attempt with Jeter on 2nd and no outs. Sigh.

Both Sterling and Waldman ripped him pretty bad for this. Could this be the beginning of the end for Womack?

Nice to see that Matsui can take care of things behind the not-so-clutch Rodriguez. (i'm not A-rod bashing, I'm just saying...)

Do you think they could get a decent outfielder for Womack and Tino? (I love Tino, but if that's what it takes...)

Womack can't even 'effing bunt. If he can't hit and can't bunt, what use is this guy on offense? For the love of ...

"The Yankees - Giving up first career home runs since 2005."

This is ridiculous

So, Stanton in to face lefties (messrs Edmonds and Walker). Irony! Right about here, the game is poised to blow open.

I would say that home run crystalized the year so far. Any chance of a comeback? Can Stanton NOT allow the inherited runners to score?

C'mon guys, win a series against a good team for once!

three pitches?!?!?! womack is now officially my arch-nemesis. let's trade him to the red sux for the ghost of david wells.

Oh well, Sturtze and Stanton blew the game. Does anyone know Joe Torre? Or know someone who knows Joe Torre? If yes, please for the love all that is good and right in baseball tell him to stop having 'effing Tony Womack hit 2nd. Out of pity, Womack should only hit 9th once a bloody week.

You know, for a moment there I actually thought they could win it. How foolish of me.

The only real consolation is the thought that maybe they could have won that game against most other teams.

There is nothing I hate more than a day-game loss before an off day.

Well at least they played clean baseball, and we were beaten by one of the best teams in MLB. Replace Woe-is-me-mack with Sheff and who knows what happens. Stanton is too dangerous to put in close games. Maybe Joe should get radical and put in Rivera when we need to absolutely shut them down. Gordon can close on those occasions.

Yankees keep losing. Torre keeps managing like Stump Merrill. What's new? With a short bullpen (supposedly Gordon was unavailable), Torre takes Pavano out after 6, having thrown less than 95 pitches, with a 2-1 lead and the bottom of the Cardinals line-up due to bat in the 7th. Uh, wha happened? Sturze pitching badly is not Torre's fault but his being in there in the first place is. Then Stanton tries to get Edmonds fishing low and away with a base open with three straight bad breaking balls. So, do we keep throwing it down and away or DO WE THROW A MEDIOCRE INSIDE FAST BALL IN EDMONDS' KITCHEN SO WE CAN OUTRIGHT LOSE THE GAME RIGHT THEN AND THERE? Whoever called that pitch and its location doesn't matter...it's still Mel's fault for allowing such a ridiculous choice of pitches. Edmonds' hot zone is up and middle-in. Yeah, let's throw an 86 mile an hour meatball right there. Good call, morons.
Womack, Giambi, etc. have all been covered by other posts. But, that inning is the ultimate indictment of Torre and Stottlemyre. Even the "genius" LaRussa couldn't have pulled defeat from the jaws of victory any better.

I can't blame him for putting in Sturtze right there, so far this season he's done the job and today he failed.

However, this Womack stuff is just ridiculous. Torre batting him second is just killing us. I just want to scream that he's in the lineup, let alone in a key spot of the order.

There is no reason to bash Joe for taking out Pavano because it was clear that he was done. Pavano barely survived the 6th and would have imploded if he had gone in for the 7th inning.

Ragging on Mel is irrational for Sturtze and Stanton's failures. Last time I checked he wasn't on the mound. They made bad pitches and didn't do their job. It's on them, not Mel.

I don't know why managers and announcers see a speedy guy with .280 BA is good. If he doesn't draw walks/get HBP or hit for power or field like Rey Sanchez, he doesn't belong in the lineup. If he is in the lineup, there should be a rule that he can't bat higher than 8th. Now if only Woe-mack was up to .280. I have yet to see him have a decent sacrafice bunt. Yet the Cardinal announcers were saying what a good bunter he is. It seems like his reputation is like Ruben's, selective memory. I suppose this is fine for a fan, but these people get paid to analyze the situations or entertain us and they sure aren't entertaining me.

Most announcers there days are not omly bad announcers, but woefully uneducated about the current abilities of players. They over flatter and rarely point out problems and deficiencies players have. It's as if the are getting kickbacks from palyers agents.

Jerry Remy. for the Sox, if one of the few who will say something slightly 'negative' about a player. Howard Cosel was not afraid to. But most announcers sugar coat everything they say.

The St.Louis announcer commented that Giambi was getting curveballs because the pitcher didn't want to challenge him with a fastball. HA! What Giambi wantsis pitches in the 80's... not high heat.

Poltical correctness is now taking over baseball. Sugar coated misinformation is now better then correct analysis.

Singledd,

Please tell me your cat was walking on your keyboard as you made that last posting (tilted smiley face with wink).

Still, I completely empathize with your plight - I've been playing most games on mute lately while playing "light classical" to soothe my intermittent rage.

Also, I know this has already been documented here, but Torre has become a complete enigma to me. We all know about Womack batting 2nd - or anywhere, for that matter - but why was Sheff "resting" today? I wasn't aware of any injuries, and tomorrow's a day off, so... Winning this game would've done wonders for our ever-plummeting morale. If I believed in conspiracy theories I would think that Torre's sabotaging himself. Or else, he really has become a poor manager.

Guess what? Torre hasn't become a poor manager...he was always a poor manager. Oh, forgive me for holding him responsible for the way the Yankees are playing. Let's blame everyone else including Canada but let's not question Clueless Joe's performance. My point has not been countered: with the bottom of the line-up coming up in the 7th (including the dreaded Scott Seabol-creature, destroyer of pitchers)and Pavano having thrown fewer than 95 pitches, why was Sturze brought in? He wasn't cooked. And we've all seen Torre leave a starter in(does the name Kevin Brown ring a bell?)even after a touch and go inning. It's Torre's fetishization of this TanGorMo thing. Plain and simple. What's more, Torre knew he had a short bullpen but ended up using Gordon anyway(????). Don't you see that as the sign of a manager who no longer has a grip on his own strategy? It's his inconsistency, the way he uses the bullpen and the laughable line-ups he puts out on the field in, weirdly, the most important games (like the last game of a disastrous road trip with a chance to recoup some pride by taking a series from the NL's best team). In a pitcher's duel, every good manager knows one should never put your best defensive team on the field. Heck, who needs a good first baseman or an outfield that has ONE decent arm in it? He shoulda rested Posada yet another game...that'd give him 3 straight days off. After all, he's 48 years old. Just one year younger than Gary Sheffield. Or Carl Pavano, who can't be asked to throw more pitches in 7 innings than Kevin Brown throws in 4 and 1/3. Well, there's 100 games left in the schedule. I'm sure Torre's working out "rest" for his aging warriors as I write this.

True, but I guess the bottom line here is that this team has exposed Torre for everything he is not. In the past, I haven't had much of a problem with his in-game decisions, primarily because many of them ended auspiciously. Now, with far less room for error (due to the current roster of underperforming and over-the-hill players), every one of his decisions is amplified. Whereas, on past Yankee teams, there was some lattitude for managerial gaffes (and happy accidents they were!), this team must play flawless baseball - and be managed flawlessly - for them to have any chance at a playoff bid.

By the way, I'm not suggesting here that Torre and flawless have even been in the same zip code this year.

singledd,

Sterling and Waldman have been slamming Womack, yesterday included -- particularly about his lousy bunting. They also yesterday questioned Stanton's approach to Edmunds, especially after going up 0-2.

In general, I've been pretty pleased with this radio pair, realizing I'm in the minority..