Pat, I'm Really Really Trying, But . . .

Yankees Sweep Doubleheader, Series

I try hard to follow what I call The Pat Riley Rule. That rule simply states: No griping after a win.

And most of the time I do a pretty good job of following Mr. Riley's dictum. When you bitch after a win, you're sowing the seeds of disaster. I can intellectually and emotionally understand that. So I do my very best to be good after a win.

But this time, Pat, I just can't do it. I'm sorry.

I'm watching last night's game, feeling good about having won the first game earlier that day, feeling good about Mussina being back, feeling good about Melky having gotten three hits in the first game so that Michael Kay (gloriously absent from the Texas series) can refer to Melky without prefacing his name with the word "slumping."

Then it gets to be the bottom of the sixth, and . . . Mussina is gone.

Huh? I know Mussina was limited to 80-85 pitches last night, but he can't have been anywhere near that. I start to look it up but then Murcer informs us all that Mussina in fact had thrown just 64 pitches to that point. 64!!!!

OK, I know what you are going to say. Mussina in all likelihood could only have pitched one more inning.

And I agree. But at this point, one inning matters.

Nine outs needed from the pen instead of twelve, for a bullpen that has been abused and overused from Opening Day, matters. You want to say that's ridiculous -- that one inning in one game can't matter? OK, you're wrong, but for the sake of argument let's say last night doesn't matter. What does matter and what no one who's watched this team for any length of time can argue, is that Joe's psychology is geared towards less innings from starters and more innings from the bullpen. When we had Stanton and Nelson and Mendoza leading up to Mariano, and the right kind of starters, we got away with it. Now, when we have young, untested, shaky, and overrated leading up to Mariano, and being called on game after game after game to get "stress" outs, we get exposed. Continually.

Plus, as Mussina has done in other pitch-count-limited starts, he was aggressive, making the most out of his 80-pitch allotment. No 0-2 to 3-2. No long looks in at the ump when a pitch that caught 2 mm of the corner was called a ball. Mussina was pitching great and should've pitched six innings last night.

One.
Inning.
Matters.

Sorry to gripe after a win, Pat, but Joe needs to know it, learn it, live it.

One Inning Matters.