Blast From The (Recent) Past.

MJ2 Pulls One Out Of The MJ1 Playbook.

Tough loss in Boston yesterday, made tough to swallow by Girardi absolutely blowing it in a key situation (and earning the first "Clueless Joe" citation of his career from the Daily News).

With men on second and third and two outs, bottom 6, Girardi elects to pitch to Manny instead of walking him and pitching to Youklis.

I don't know if Mussina talked MJ2 into letting him pitch to Manny, or what. If he did then Girardi's a bigger idiot -- Manny had already homered off of Mussina.

And I understand that Youklis is a decent hitter with a good eye for the strike zone, but why the Babe Ruth treatment? You absolutely can't pitch to Manny there. What, he hasn't burned the Yankees enough in big spots?

But Girardi decides to be "different" and I didn't even need to watch. Double. 2-1 Yankees becomes 3-2 Boston.

Then, Brain Bruney decides that 0-2 is a good time to give Youklis something to hit and it's 4-2 and despite a seemingly dramatic confrontation between A Rod and Papelbon (sapped of any real drama by a 2 hour and 10 minute rain delay), the game was basically over at that point.

And a poor at bat by A Rod it was . . . three pitches, two of which were balls (maybe one -- with these umps you never know but the third pitch was definitely a ball) both of which he swung at.

The hitters in the ninth battled Papelbon well and that was the only positive, making Papelbon throw 20-something pitches to get the save.

Girardi on his 6th-inning brain fart:

"We wanted to give him a little wiggle room if he could get Manny to chase something," Girardi said. "If we got behind Manny, then we would walk him. But we never got to that point. That was the decision I made, and I have to live by it."

Please, that's just crap. Pitchers are not geared to unintentionally walking someone. Mussina, if he's left to pitch to a guy, is going to throw strikes. Throwing too good a strike is entirely possible. That's why the manager has to step up and make the decision, not leave the pitcher to decide and then jsutify if with a cop out of "if he'd fallen behind then we'd walk Manny." If he'd walked Manny and Youklis killed us, I wouldn't have a word to say about it.

Manny Ramirez. Kevin Youklis.
Predator. Shrek.
One of the most feared and productive right-handed hitters in modern baseball. A career .280 hitter who gets way too much respect from pitchers.

I didn't think it took a genius manager to make the right choice on which of those two to pitch to.

Oh well.

It's still early. Isn't it?


OK, He Could Catch The Next Simulated Game That Pedro Throws!

Jorge Posada played long-toss the other day. Still no word on when he gets back behind the plate, but in the meantime he's doing a fine job cutting into the playing time of Damon and Shemp by DHing.

I'm thinking an extended minor league rehab assignment is in order.