Nearly set-up for failure
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Brian Bruney on his outing tonight:
“That’s my bad, obviously. I thought I threw the ball pretty well tonight. I can go home on sleep on that. I’m fine with it. It’s not like I’m out there walking guys to their bases every time. I feel good. That’s baseball, man. The ball bounces six inches to the right and we got a double play and I’m out of the winning. I was OK with the way I threw the ball tonight. Obviously the results weren’t there. As long as we get a W, I honestly don’t care.”
Don’t blame Joe Girardi for using Bruney in the eighth inning. He, like every other manager, paints by numbers and Bruney is the Eighth Inning Guy. So if there is a lead, he pitches in the eighth inning.
You’d like to think common sense would come into play. Phil Hughes had just retired the side on nine pitches and was throwing 96. Just leave well enough alone. If you’re going to use him in the bullpen, then use him.
But the good of staying with Hughes was outweighed by the risk of somebody asking why Bruney didn’t pitch. Or somebody asking whether Hughes was now the Eighth Inning Guy.
Someday a manager will come along, throw the book away and just manage the game by what he sees with his eyes, not what he fears. But until then, don’t blame Girardi. He’s just doing what he’s trained to do.
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on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 12:39 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Here’s the rumored 2003 MLB steroid list:
http://sports.iowa.com/2009/06.....roid-list/
That is a phony list and people need to stop linking to it. It’s not legit.
Its fake. Wait until you see it on SI or Espn. No one is leaking it until they get big money.
Good post, Pete…….sums up how I feel. I already did most of my venting, though.
John Madden manages the way he wants
I don’t know why Girardi has to have an “eighth inning guy”. Even Bruney considers the eighth inning his “job”. I always thought that the bullpen worked on the merit system and relievers were in the pen because they were too erratic to be starters to begin with. Since when do players own an inning? Mariano was the last pitcher I remember who owned an inning but he’s a 1 in a million pitcher. Someone tell Joe that Marianos don’t grow on trees.
I think eventually waht we’re going to see is a sitiuation where Bruney pitches one night and then Hughes pitches the next night….It does leave a gap though…..Tonight Phil should have come back out and pitch the 8th…Then you have Bruney set up for tomorrow night…Phil is now spent for at least 2 days….
Hmmm, not sure if you’re supporting Girardi’s OVERmanaging or not. Anyway, content that the Yankees got another W DESPITE Girardi’s intervention.
PA – good call on Hughes/Bruney.
No one can accuse you of the second guess – when you questioned the move at the time! (what did people do in the old days before blogs?)
SJ, here’s the post game write-up for the WV Power. Glowing words indeed for young Mr. Sanchez. Congratulations to you, him and your family.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.....p;sid=t525
It seems that Bruney always find an excuse for his behavior no matter what~ I remember in 2007 when he struggle, he said “what do you want I am not Mariano Rivera”,yes that’s why he can’t be him….
But that’s insane, Pete. Baseball should be based on merit. Hughes is pitching well; Bruney isn’t.
Where does Bruney get off saying he threw the ball well? Is he delusional??
I don’t know. Bruney’s not pitching like an 8th inning guy. Switch them. If Bruney has a problem with it, just show him the box scores. If he still has a problem with it, just show him the door.
I’m willing to give Bruney a pass because he may not be all the way back from injury. But at least 3 of his outings he’s been back have been less than stellar.
Phil should be the set-up guy until Bruney’s back. He’s not back imo.
Phil can pitch tomorrow – Joe has said he can go back to back. I’d like to see Phil pitch more than 1 inning at a time – for one night, Joe could have not played exactly by the book. He’s almost robotic……
Pete, please let us know if you’re being facetious with this last posting. It sounds like you’re contradicting yourself. Did you hear something at the post-game that changed your mind?
I still think that Hughes was removed with the intent of having him available for tomorrow night. It should be another tight game with Washburn pitching. He always gives NYY fits. If he pitches two innings, he may be lost for the next two games.
Hughes will be the 8th inning guy after the All star break…Bruney/Coke 7th inning guys
Well that explains why Phil was taken out so early.
Joba was a pain to watch,with too many pitches.Brian made me hold my breath. Glad they pulled off another win.
Hughes should be the fireman. They should bring him in to face the best hitters
Hughes should be the 8th inning guy right now, plain and simple. He is the best reliever they have besides Rivera.
And Bruney needs to stop talking after he said, “my bad”.
I knew the list was bogus,Bond, Macguire,and Palmmero aren’t even named.
It’s safe to say that Girardi has a little more patience with his players than the fans do.
Bruney has pitched well lately but you can’t deny the guy was throwing smoke and unhittable before the elbow injury.
It will take a few more of these kinds of outings before Girardi makes a change.
It’s not like Bruney has had much work in the last month to 6 weeks. He’ll be fine as soon as he shakes the rust off.
Bruney has pitched well lately but you can’t deny the guy was throwing smoke and unhittable before the elbow injury.
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Um, that’s hasn’t pitched well lately – obviously.
One day a manager is going to get hired who is going to end this Tony LaRussa inspired bull pen nonsense. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be Girardi. He’s very conventional in almost everything he does.
I don’t buy this idea that just because all managers do the same thing you have to give any one of them a pass for making a bad decision because that’s what baseball manager 101 says to do. Every decision is an individual one.
It’s remarkable how Tony LaRussa and his idea on how to use a bull pen have become an unchangeable force in the game.
Yikes. They need to sweep this series. Next 7 against the mariners are @ Seattle.
Nick in SF
June 30th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
the pain in youk’s wrist
can only pale against the
pain in his mirror
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Nick, wherever you are. This is your best work.
Let Bruney practice in innings other than the 8th until his “rustiness” (and who knows if that is what it is) is gone.
I still blame Girardi.
Can someone explain the Haiku? Is the mirror reflecting Youk’s pain because of what he sees? Or is the mirror experiencing pain? like “pain of his mirror”?
As long as Phil Hughes stays in the bullpen, he is not building innings for his future role as a starter. But there are no plans for him to return to the minors. “I can’t look Mariano Rivera in the face and say, ‘I’m going to weaken your bullpen right now for the future,’ ” General Manager Brian Cashman said. Helping Hughes’s case to stay is the veteran Sergio Mitre, who is 2-0 with a 2.88 E.R.A. in four starts for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Having Mitre as insurance for the rotation lessens the need for Hughes to fill that role.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07.....f=baseball
Remember when everyone said, “Just wait until Bruney gets back”? Oh, and Nady, too. That’s why you have to work with what you have. You may even have to redefine roles.
haiku-man July 1st, 2009 at 12:56 am
I knew the list was bogus,Bond, Macguire,and Palmmero aren’t even named.
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They are. Unless you were being funny with the spelling?
m,
I think Nick is taking his own artistic licencse in making a comment on how pleasing Youkilis’ mug is to look at, even for himself.
m
July 1st, 2009 at 1:05 am
Can someone explain the Haiku? Is the mirror reflecting Youk’s pain because of what he sees? Or is the mirror experiencing pain? like “pain of his mirror”?
————————————————–
I’d like to think it’s a little of both.
what a comeback for the Orioles tonight….and Bruney had a bit of an attitude during postgame…doesn’t take failure too well I guess….the AL East is getting very interesting 2.5 back, probably going to be an exciting 3 team race w/ the Sox and Rays all summer
I would pay good money to see someone take THE BOOK and toss it on a fire.
And this is from a bibliophile.
If Hughes pitched two innings he probably wouldn’t be available tommorow. Didn’t Girardi say he wanted to use Hughes more like a reliever now. Meaning he would be pitching back to back days. Hughes could of pitched the 9th too tonight and then he wouldn’t be avaliable for a while. I dont really have a problem bringing in Brian Bruney. Bruney was the setup man before his injury and was doing a good job. If Bruney gets back on track the bullpen can become dominant.
Very tough night to be a Sox fan.
Ugh.
-dennis
dennis,
Ray posted earlier and he had the right take on the game. These things happen to all teams at one time or another. It’s just an outlier, the kind of thing that makes baseball baseball. You guys are playing good ball and that’s what counts over time.
CB.
Thanks. Amazing that if they win tomorrow they had a great road trip yet lost a ton of ground. Life in the AL East.
If I could Haiku it would be a sad country music tune..
-dennis
A guy did come along and throw the book away…and he went to the World Series and won Manager of the Year last year in the AL. Joe Maddon had so much success last year doing exactly what Pete is talking about. You would think that door had already been busted down.
I don’t buy this idea that just because all managers do the same thing you have to give any one of them a pass for making a bad decision because that’s what baseball manager 101 says to do. Every decision is an individual one.
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But that is precisely why they do it; they know if they play by the book they won’t be heavily criticized. And Pete’s blog entry provides the perfect rationale for them.
Playing not to lose – or not deviating from formula to achieve an unconventional success – is how most coaches and managers in sports operate. The alternative is too risky for them.
I am somewhat disappointed in Girardi.
I thought he would not just be more unconventional, but he strikes me as less intelligent than I gave him credit for. He has his good points, but he’s not really exceptional, either.
I don’t get it Pete. In the game thread, you correctly point out the foolishness of bringing Bruney into the game, but then you say “Don’t blame Joe Girardi” because every manager would make the same poor decision.
Well, even if that’s true, why shouldn’t we want and expect the manager of the Yankees to be more intelligent than “every other manager”.
What’s more, while Girardi may like to consider Bruney the “8th inning guy” the reality is he has very little track record in that role. Also, he is fresh off an injury. Instead of getting Bruney 5-6 low leverage innings, Girardi has shoe horned him right back into the mythical “8th inning guy” role.
I am sorry, but the only person to blame for this lazy and flawed thinking is Girardi. A billion dollar entity with a $200mn payroll deserves more than the conventional wisdom of a run-of-the-mill manager, especially if they are making him among the highest paid in the sport.
Also, you aren’t exactly speaking highly of your profession. Instead of peppering the manager with the silly questions about “8th inning” guys, it would be nice if the beat guys would also throw away the same silly book. Instead of giving him a pass for managing to avoid silly questions, how refreshing would it be if the writers actually just asked him intelligent questions?
It sounds as if Pete, and a lot of writers get tired of asking the same questions about the roles. Bruney is the bridge to Mariano in Joe’s mind and that’s the conventional way of looking at it. No amount of creative thinking and logic will change that. Hughes had a hot hand and yet he was ignored for Bruney.
It might not be in the book, but it might seem like a good idea once in a while to manage to win the game instead of manage a game not to get criticized. This strategy might include using the available players toward that end. Maybe slam the door shut with your best available guys in the 7th or 8th instead of relying on scoring runs in the 8th and 9th.
In the past, Hughes might have been left in for a few more hitters but Joe is playing it for the back pages instead of playing to win today’s game which is what Yankee fans were used to until he joined the team.
When you think of a set up guy,Bruney was a nail biter.Phil getting only 9 pitches was mind blowing. I know Joe is trying to keep the bull pen pitchers with defined roles,but if Jeter hadn’t tacked on two in the 8th,Bruney would have been even scarier to watch.
Orio
I like Phil in the pen but I don’t like the way he’s being used. 9 pitches and he’s out of the game? that is BS.
I said this last night before Bruney came in and we’ve all been saying it. Phil should be pitching more than 1 inning at a time. He should pitch 2+ inning streches twice a week so that he could spot start and get his innings.
Sure Bruney is the 8th inning guy with Phil is not.
Neither of them should pitch back to back days. Bruney has been hurt and Phil should be pitching multi inning outings!
hey pete
saw on yes how brian bruney jumped ugly on you last night
he is an idiot
Pete,
Bruney has been ineffective and quirky since his return. It’s clear to me, just a lifelong fan, that he’s not ready for prime time. That said, the circumstances didn’t dictate Bruney’s arrival into the game. Hughes was very economical and he shut the Mariners down. WHY take him out??????? The “8th inning guy” was never ready to be in the game even if he did shave off his mustache!!!!
Talk about throwing out the book, someday someone will review the managerial decisions of Casey Stengel. He used different lineups almost every day depending on who was hot (and other things). He was always 3 deep at every position. He didn’t use a fixed rotation. Many times he held Whitey Ford out for more than 5 days and then pitched him with 2 days rest in big series. The list goes on. I suppose the players would be upset today, and of course he set himself up for some serious second guessing. But it worked out pretty well for him (at least until he got to the Mets).
I have to admit K-Rod had it right with Bruney. He’s a guy that’s done nothing, but talks a big game. Let him stay healthy and consistent for a couple of years, and then talk.
Damed if you do, damned if you don’t. Girardi doesn’t play by the book (A-Rod resting, using Hughes mid-innings, etc) and he gets questioned for it.
He then plays by the book (or at least does what he said he would do – make Bruney the 8th inning guy) and he’s questioned for it.
Hughes should not be given the 8th inning because he will be too valuable as a starter in just another couple of months, if not sooner due to injury. They would only set themselves up for another Joba issue if they do that now.
I think folks are overlooking the big picture that Girardi is trying to paint. Many people believe (Joe included?) that a bullpen works best as a unit if the respective parts have a feel for when/how they will be used. It seems clear that mental preparation for an appearance on the mound(a very important aspect)would be aided by defined roles. To that end, he needs to get Bruney’s role established. Nobody likes (or could predict) the result from last night, but I think his motivation is legitimate. Also, I’m loath to criticize the logic of a very successful big league catcher, based on my net experience in that role . . .
I do like how sportswriters like Pete kill guys for going against convention…and then turn around when they do follow convention turn around and hammer them for not being creative. I think its easy to sit up there in the booth and make these calls (even on a well-read, public blog like this) because you don’t have to answer any questions later on and you don’t have to deal with whether your ideas work out. If you were right, you can take credit for being right (as sportswriters never hesitate to do) and if you’re wrong, you can just pretend like the whole thing never happened. Managers don’t have that luxury and are often damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The stuff The Girardi does half the time is none sense. Mixing and matching is a load a crap. How about coaching with know how and gut than the book. If the dude is pitching well why the hell pull him? He’s done this far too many times to count and most of those choices have come back to bite him. Half the time it’s like he’s taking his queues from Baseball for Dummies.
This particular discussion is an apt illustration of a pet peeve of mine that plays out on many blogs and newspapers when discussing managerial decisions. They invariably focus on the implications of a decision within the context of the single game. I believe that successful managers often are managing BEYOND the individual game. They sometimes make a move because they need to see if someone can handle a particular situation, or to bolster a player’s confidence. I agree, that in the specific context of last night’s game, I would have left Hughes in. However, in the context of establishing a strong bullpen for the rest of the season, Girardi needs to get Bruney “going”. He had a 2 run lead, and Mo in reserve, so I can see (and accept) his logic for bringing Bruney in.
I don’t think Pete is that type of sportswriter, Chris N. He has blasted Girardi for failing to adhere to convention because often managing by THE BOOK is the best choice — look at Pete’s comments for the game against the Mess last weekend when he hit Joey G for not stealing with Gardner ahead of Wang (CMW hit into a DP) and for not walking Castillo with Livan up next, two outs and a runner in scoring position (Castillo smacked an RBI hit).
Joel Sherman of the Post is the prototype of what you describe — Joba should be in the ‘pen . . . oh, he whiffed 12 Blosax in 5.2 innings, he should start.
The fact remains that no matter how easy it is to sit in the booth and second-guess, the great managers are the ones who will defy convention and aggressively control the games and the critics be buggered. Their control and unpredictability helps their team in close games, especially in the playoffs.
This explains why LaRussa could win a World Series with Anthony Reyes, Jeff Weaver and Jeff Suppan getting four starts, and why the Yankees won the 1996 Series even though Smoltz-Maddux-Glavine pitched 36.2 innings in five starts with a 1.23 ERA (the Yanks won three of those five games). It’s the type of decision-making that leads the manager to yank his starter after 4.2 IP with a 3-2 lead and bring in a washed-up 4-14 veteran to face the most dangerous hitter in the opposing lineup (Torre, 2000 WS) or start a rookie on three days’ rest in game 7 of the World Series (Scioscia, 2002).
Joe Maddon, Mike Scioscia, and Terry Francona all manage as Pete describes. When Torre STOPPED doing so and became a paint-by-numbers guy (basically, game 4 of the ‘03 Series), the Yanks stopped winning championships. The paradigm example: the 2004 ALCS, when Francona outmanaged Torre so badly it looked like Torre was the first-year skipper at the club desperate for respect and Francona was the cagey veteran with nearly a fistful of rings.
I love the last paragraph you have there. I myself have often thought the exact same thing before of Girardi and a few other managers in the league. It makes you want to pull your hair out sometime. Just manage the situation, at that moment, in that specific game, its that simple. Good call.
That list was definitely made by a red sox fan. I was in hysterics seeing Aaron Boone up there. Look, he hit a HR that sent your team home in the 2003 alcs, get over it. He wasn’t on steroids because he had one big hit in his career. And 20/103 players on steroids came from the AL East? Looks like the sox fan that wrote that was just going down AL East 2003 rosters naming everyone he didn’t like and then realized he had already used up 1/5th of his possible names, and so started throwing out random/obvious names no longer organized by team