Another Yankees Thread:

[bxbomb]

yes because Joe Torre walked 3 guys in the bottom of the 9th inning

yes we all know you can just fire the players instead

[kfitz73]

http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=2917803&searchName=Neyer_Rob&univLogin02=stateChanged

Torre's bullpen blunder

posted: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

I'm 100 percent sure that Joe Torre is trying to win.

Well, maybe 99 percent sure. I know just enough about quantum physics to know I can't be 100 percent sure about anything.

But I'm 99 percent sure that Torre is trying to win. After all, someday he's going to be elected to the Hall of Fame as a manager, and there aren't many Hall of Fame managers who weren't really, really trying to win.

You had to wonder last night, though. You had to wonder, while watching Scott Proctor walk home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning, with Mariano Rivera never having thrown a single pitch in the game.

As a friend wrote me last night, a few seconds after Corey Patterson trotted home with that winning run:

It's just insane. There is no logical reason why, facing a situation WHERE YOU CANNOT GIVE UP A RUN, OR YOU LOSE (and fall two games under .500), you would choose Proctor over Rivera. This is managing to a statistic -- the save -- rather than to win. According to Torre's logic, you use Proctor when you simply can't give up a run, and you use Rivera when you can. Absurd.

Indeed. I've been harping on this since (at least) Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, when the Yankees lost a 12-inning game and Rivera never left the bullpen. But Torre keeps making the same mistake, over and over and over again.

Last Saturday in San Francisco, the Yankees lost a 13-inning game. Rivera never left the bullpen. In fact, every relief pitcher pitched except the Yankees' best relief pitcher.

Granted, Rivera had thrown 20 pitches the night before. So we'll cut Torre some slack there. But last night? Rivera hadn't pitched at all since that 20-pitch outing last Friday. Last night he was as well-rested as you'd ever want your closer to be. No slack on this one.

In Torre's autobiography he wrote, "I'm more concerned about winning the game than trying to cover my butt." Really, Joe? Next time you're on the road and the game's tied in the ninth, prove it.