Yankees Hope Joe V2.0 (Girardi) Is An Upgrade From Joe 1.0 (Torre)

There’s still an Italian-American, ex-National League catcher/broadcaster named Joe in the dugout, but this season the Yanks have downloaded and installed Joe 2.0. 

The Joe Girardi Era started in earnest on a cold April Tuesday night with a crisp 3-2 victory over Roy Halladay and the Toronto Blue Jays. Girardi’s main contribution to the victory was what he did not do. He resisted the temptation to start the bullpen parade in the seventh and he let Chien May Wang get out of trouble on his own, setting up the one-two punch of Chamberlain in the eighth and Mo in the ninth to nail down the win.

It’s going to be hard, if not impossible, this season to avoid comparisons with Joe Torre (Joe 1.0) and not see everything as either a vindication or a criticism. I do get the feeling that if Torre had been managing there’s a good chance we would have seen Latroy Hawkins at least warming up in that seventh inning.

But by letting Wang finish Joe 2.0 demonstrated patience and confidence in his starting pitcher, something Wang could use after his play off debacle last season. Off course it also helped that Melky Cabrera made two dazzling catches and hit a game tying Home Run. (What is it about Melky? On a team loaded wit super-stars he’s always the one who’s in the middle of things, especially Yankee victories.)

So what can we expect from Joe 2.0?

We got an inkling of things to come during spring training...actually a little before when apparently Joe 2.0 called each Yankee player and asked them to come to camp IN shape rather that coming to camp to GET INTO shape. After digging holes for themselves with slow starts in the last three season, being ready when the season starts could signal a welcomed change of attitude.

But the big sign of things to come appeared once the games started. Much has been made of the minor dust up with Tampa Bay: Joe protesting a hard slide into home that resulted in a broken the wrist for a Yankee catching prospect which was quickly followed-up by Shelley Duncan’s spikes up  slide into second an ensuing brawl the next time the two teams played.

What most impressed me took place during a game against the Red Sox, where Andy Petite became the first Yankee pitcher to finally throw “a little too inside” to David Ortiz and brush him back off the plate. Ortiz was so surprised he stepped out of the batters box and stared at Petite as if to say  “This is going to be a long season...” Maybe he and  Derek Jeter can share a ride to the hospital the next time the Yanks visit Fenway.

This Yankee team was going to be tougher, for lack of a better word, They’ll still be classy, still be quietly confident, but a bit more focused, a bit more assertive — and they weren’t going to turn the other cheek any more. The Tampa Bay episode was Girardi’s way of announcing the to the world that these Yankees were replacing “passive aggressive” with “aggressive aggressive”.

Ironically, acquiring Girardi was one of Torre’s, and then Yankee GM Bob Watson’s, first moves when JoeT became the Yankee manager before the 1996 season. JoeG replaced a popular and power hitting catcher, Mike Stanley. I seem to remember Girardi being referred to as a “catch and throw guy”, meaning that he couldn’t hit. But he turned out to be one of the rocks of that championship team, he anchored a pitching staff of rookies, almost rookies and veterans, got his hits when they mattered most and generally did whatever it took to win.

As a player, coach, manager and even broadcaster, JoeG has always seemed calm, prepared, energetic and focused. Torre projected a self assured confidence, sort of like an Uncle or older brother who’s done and sen it all. Girardi seems to posses an inner intensity...he may be in control on the outside, but you get the feeling that he can barely contain himself on the inside. He’s more like the kid brother who wants to prove he can play with the big boys

As this season has gotten under way, this Yankee team looks and feels different, less tense, more engaged. They actually looked a lot like the 1996 Yankees, playing good defense, moving runners along (the winning run in the opener scored on a bases loaded ground out), making good pitches and basically doing whatever it takes to win.

During the first week they also won one game with three bunts and a sac fly, won another by making a first inning Matsui two run homer stand up for nine innings as Wang, Joba and Mo combined for a shut out, and peppered that same Tampa Bay team  a day later with 11 hits in a 6 -1 victory to end the week with four wins in seven games.

Accept for a 13-4 loss to the Rays, the bullpen has been pretty good, though Hawkins had a predictable meltdown and Farnsworth gave up his obligatory home run (both in the aforementioned 13-4 blow-out). They redeemed themselves to a degree a few days later but they still make me nervous.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the traditional lack of offense in April. The Yanks have a tradition of not hitting until sometime in May...must have something to do with the temperature difference between Florida and New York...then they more than make up for it. You get the feeling that this team won’t have to score six runs or more to win most of their games, I see a lot more 3-2 wins than we’ve been treated to in recent years.

That means watch out once they do start hitting. This is going to be a fun team to watch. It’s the kind of team that can beat you any number of ways, as capable of squeezing out a run in a close one as they are of hitting six homers in a blowout...doing whatever it takes to win.

It’s all included with Joe 2.0

Photo of Joe Torre and Joe Girardi by AP/Tony Gutierrez