What Are Managers For?

The Yankees, yesterday, gave up another meaningful lead and got clobbered.  We are making a pattern of giving up 3, 4 and 5 run leads lately.  And losing.  And losing ground.

The pitching staff, and much of the regular line-up, may be visually described as follows;



No, that is not spaghetti on her brain, it is a tangled mess.

1.  We all said, " Walk him, goddamit.  Walk him!"  Sonny Gray had established from his first pitch that this would be "one of those days."  He could not throw a first pitch strike.  He couldn't throw a strike when the count went to 3-2 either.  He is desperately trying to protect a one run lead, with two out, one on on third ) and Mike Trout at the plate ( did he think it was Steve Trout?)

The manager must, by now, know that MLB changed the rule for intentional walks to speed up the games.  Just wave your hand, and off he trots.  Instead, Boone pitches to Trout ( who had hit two scorching doubles in his first two at bats ) and suddenly, the Yankees are behind and out for the count.  Shitty, miserable decision by a rookie manager, trying to give his pitcher confidence.  Meanwhile, it blew the game.

2.  The last thing I imagined was sending the " toe " down to SCRANTON.  He was hitting .330 and played great defense.  Torreyes was a thorn in every team's side whenever he played, and loved by the team.  Clearly, this was management thinking...."our starters are so terrible, we need 5 relievers per game to give us any chance of winning."

The message here is; " no matter how consistently well you play, if you are not a full scholarship player, you will be trashed."  This is clearly a Yankee administration that would have found no place for Phil Rizzuto.

The team is bummed, and all to bring up a guy who has never been reliable ( Bird), and who was hitting .200 in AAA.  He is now hitting zero in the majors after yesterday's debut, flashing an unimpressive and non threatening 0-4.

3.  If opposing pitchers only throw change-ups, curves, sliders and sinkers to Stanton, he will strike our forever.  He can only hit a fastball.  And only from lefties. But he made a nice defensive play, or we would have lost 13-4.

4.  I, too, wondered why Knahle and why now?  He had not shown anything in the minors.  His only asset is his fastball, and it is not doing what it did last year.  His work was useless.  Can't wait until Adam Warren proves that he, too, is out of gas.

5. The big guns in our line-up ( all swinging to hit the ball 454 feet ) are just shooting blanks far too often, and it is obvious that they can't do much damage against really good pitching.  So, our shot in the post season would seem limited.  We aren't scoring 10 runs often enough, and sometimes lose even when we do.

6.  But the real story is that we have one reliable starting pitcher.  Sonny, CC, Tanaka and German are each good for about 4 innings and 6 runs per start.  And there is no point considering a trade of our best prospects because we can't get 4 reliable starters in any imaginable series of transactions, and that is what we need.  It is a fairy tale to think we can win the AL East if the four current starters are a combined 32-32 in mid September.  This is what you call;  a mess.

7.  The Yankees are the ones who should play the Tampa Bay" pitching switch."  Lay out each game with the idea of replacing our starter ( except Luis) after three innings.  Always walk a dangerous hitter if there is anyone on base, and two outs.  Hold the damage down and keep all thirteen pitchers active.

Also, change the batting order.  Bird and Stanton should be in the 7-8-9 part of the order.  Torres needs to be moved to the heart.  Seriously consider getting Clint Frazier into the outfield now.  Gary and Hicks, lovable as they are, are not producing.

And we won't even address the " Didi issue" right now.  He is great.  Yes.  But none of us have seen a non hitting streak from a star, as relentless as this one is.  His lack of production is killing us.  At least move him to the 9 hole.

8.  Make some courageous changes, Aaron.  That is your job.  Now do it.  It is not courageous to simply plug in the expected, formulaic moves ( Bird, Khanle, Warren, Walker ).  Anyone can do that.

I suggest we begin today.