Bad Bats + Bad Call + Bad Bernie + Bad Bullpen = One Bad L

Twins 5, Yankees 1

The re-emergence of a negative pattern from last year: The Yankees face a guy they're never seen before. He doesn't throw particularly hard. He doesn't throw much of anything. The Yankees lunge and flail at first pitches. Before you know it it's the seventh inning and we've scored one run.

Mussina pitched pretty well. Torre left him in for one batter too many and that cost us a run. Farnsworth blew up and that cost us two more runs, but by that time it really didn't matter.

Along with our burtal approach at the plate last night, two pivotal plays turned this game.

Posada was at third with one out and the Yankees trailing 2-1. Bernie flies to deep right. Posada is slow, and Lew Ford makes a very good throw. Posada's called out at the plate. On the replay it's clear that Mauer doesn't come close to tagging Posada's back before Posada's hand touches the plate. Inning over, huge momentum swing.

Any doubt that the call was bogus is erased next inning when YES shows the home plate umpire going up to Posada between innings and asking him about the call. You can clearly read Posada's lips saying "he didn't tag me." And they weren't arguing; the home plate umpire has this embarrased smile on his face. He knew he blew the call! Aaagggggghhhhhhh!!!!!

The other play comes in the eighth. We get first and second against Rincon, no outs, only down 3-1. Bernie comes up. And promptly bounces into a double play. Game.

But that shouldn't obscure the fact that we lost this game with our approach at the plate. Baker doesn't throw very hard, he doesn't have a devastating splitter or a killer change-up. His curve ball reminds no one of Bert Blylyven. His motion is hardly deceptive. He's the kind of pitcher, whether we've seen him before or not, that this team should if not feast on then at least get more than 3 hits off of in seven innings.

The other issue that games like last night point up is the Bernie Williams issue. This past homestand against KC Bernie did well and the Yankee Stadium crowd practically gave him a curtain call for every hit. And I understand it's going to be a love-fest this year, a "Thanks for the Memories" sort of deal as Bernie takes his "victory lap" all season.

Which is fine, but this is the reason I didn't want Bernie back this year, even at the bargain rate. Becasue I know Torre is going to find a way to play him 14o games this year. And Bernie simply isn't a 140 games kind of player any more. Torre will run two hours of windsprints before he'll go against one of "his guys." Having Bernie there makes Torre manage from the history books, which is bad for the team.

I blame the front office for not addressing the DH situation this off-season. For whatever reason, Giambi hits a lot better when he plays first base. I accept that and can live with Giambi's defensive shortcomings because his offense far outweighs those. Given that, we needed to have a much better option at DH than Bernie. Since we will undoubtedly need pitching by the time the trading deadline approaches, we are most likely stuck with Bernie Brain Lock as the mostly full-time DH all season.


Santana vs. Wright Tonight

Tonight, it's Jaret Wright's first start of the season, versus Johann Santana. And while Santana's first two starts haven't been good, I don't like the way this game shapes up at all. Santana is going to figure it out pretty soon, probably tonight. Wright seems totally incapable of dodging flying objects when on the mound and even when he's not getting hit by stuff he's prone to mental lapses. The Yankees' best hope is that Santana has one more bad start in him, Wright is decent and that the bullpen manages to hold it together. I'm not supremely confident.