Armchair Managers Strike Again!

Everyone is an expert after the fact. Why was Bill Buckner in the game? Coach Levy should have never tried for the field goal, didn’t he know Norwood would kick it wide? If I were Lincoln, I never would have went to the Theater.

I observed my facebook wall frequently throughout the Yankee game catching posts by Yankee fans. 1st inning A.J. Burnett gives up 4 runs. “Girardi needs to get the bullpen going” and “pull Burnett” 8 people “like” this. Turns out Girardi made the right call leaving Burnett in who pitched spectacular after the 1st inning. That does two things for the manager, it keeps the Yankees in the game and it builds the confidence of A.J. Burnett for future games.

The 7th inning, finally the Yankees hitting came alive scoring 6 runs in one inning. Girardi did the right thing in going to the hot Burnett, none of the facebook armchair managers complained about that move until after the fact. Two runners on, facebook managers strike again “why did he leave him in they should have went to Hughes”

It seems all the wrongheaded criticism of Girardi lacks factual analysis. Okay, so the formula is you have the lead, you have a hot pitcher with a low pitch count and so you take him out and you put in your bullpen who subsequently has faltered this postseason. All this while your starting pitching has been lights out to the most part this post season? Let’s see how that formula worked for the Angels. They had the lead, they had a hot starting pitcher who gave up no runs got himself in a bind but started to get out of that bind by popping Damon out, then Scioscia called for lefty Darren Oliver and gave up 6 runs in one inning. So now its Girardi’s turn and he just witnessed that, why in the heck would you go right to the bullpen and do the same thing? So he went with the hot hand and it didn’t work out, AJ Burnett walked one and gave up a hit. He took him out and Matre gave up a sac bunt and a chopper for one run. Hughes comes in and walks one and gives up two hits, AJ Burnett only gave up one hit and walked one that inning and gave up NO runs. 
 

In the end the bullpen gave up the winning run, AGAIN. Still the facebook managers blame Girardi? This silliness is not just confined to facebook; there are self proclaimed baseball experts that spout the same flawed criticism. Those that unfairly criticize Girardi after the fact lack baseball knowledge and I think Girardi is operating on a higher level than they can comprehend. Of course he has made mistakes, so has Torre, so did Terry Francona who incidentally was swept by the same Angels. All great managers do, Girardi is one of the most sophisticated managers I have ever had the privilege of seeing and I am very happy that he brought the Yankees this far and I will be extremely happy if he gets this Yankee team that didn’t make the playoffs last year into the WS. Finally it ended when Joe Girardi popped out to short on a 3-and-2 pitch from Brian Fuentes with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth. Oh wait that was Nick Swisher.