Games Joe Girardi's Pitching Mismanagement Has Cost the 2015 Yankees

Last night, I saw someone defend Joe Girardi on Twitter, telling me he'd done a great job, and should be named American League Manager of the Year.

As soon as the EMTs found the pieces of my exploded head, and put them back together, I got back online, and I told him that Girardi had blown 20 games with pitching mismanagement this season.

He didn't believe me. So I decided to find out if I was right.

Note that I'm not including bad hitting or defensive substitutions, either pre-game or in-game. Nor am I including leaving pitchers in too long -- because that's rare for him. I'm not even going to include games where he chose the wrong starting pitcher, like Chris Capuano.

Nor am I going to include games where Girardi and the pitchers he foolishly brought in got bailed out by later timely hitting. This is about games lost, not games won.

This list includes only games in which Girardi took a pitcher out too soon, and/or brought in the wrong reliever.

1. April 10. Girardi brings in Esmil Rogers and lets him pitch 4 2/3 innings. Boston Red Sox 6, Yankees 5 in 19 innings.

2. April 11. It's 2-1 Red Sox going into the 7th. Girardi brings in Chris Martin, and then Matt Tracy. Red Sox 8, Yankees 4. Major screwups on back-to-back days.

3. April 15. It's 3-2 Yankees going into the 6th. Nathan Eovaldi has thrown 101 pitches. He could have gone another inning. Girardi brings in David Carpenter, and he allows a home run to the first batter. He allows 2 more baserunners before Girardi replaces him with Justin Wilson, who allows 3 more runs. Girardi replaces him with Martin, who allows another run. Baltimore Orioles 7, Yankees 5.

3 major screwups in a span of 6 days.

4. April 29. It's 2-1 Tampa Bay Rays in the top of the 6th. Michael Pineda has allowed 2 baserunners in the inning, but has thrown only 93 pitches. Girardi panics, and brings in Wilson. Wilson gets the next out, and the Yankees tie the game in the bottom of the 6th.

But Girardi replaces Wilson with Carpenter for the 7th, thus using a pitcher he didn't have to use. Dellin Betances pitches the 8th, Andrew Miller the 9th and the 10th, and now Carpenter isn't available. Martin pitches the 11th, and allows no runs. But Girardi replaces him with Chasen Shreve. He allows 2 runners in the 12th, and 3 for a run in the 13th. That was at least 2 pitchers too mny. Rays 3, Yankees 2 in 13 innings.

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5. May 4. It's 1-0 Yankees over the Toronto Blue Jays in the bottom of the 8th. Chase Whitley pitched 7 shutout innings. He'd thrown only 90 pitches. But Girardi brought in Chris Martin. Jays 3, Yankees 1. This game is key, because it's the Jays that ended up as the team the Yankees chased for the American League Eastern Division title.

(UPDATE: Perhaps not as key as I thought it would be, as I thought, at this point, that the Yankees might lose the AL East by 1 game.)

6. May 19. It's 6-2 Yankees over the Washington Nationals in the bottom of the 5th. Nathan Eovaldi falls apart, and Girardi brings in Wilson, who stops the bleeding at 6-5. But, this being an Interleague game in a National League park, we're playing caveman baseball, with no designated hitter, and the pitcher has to bat, or else a pinch-hitter must be sent up.

Girardi pinch-hits for Wilson in the top of the 6th, and brings Carpenter in to pitch. Carpenter allows a tying home run. Girardi burns Shreve in the 7th, then uses Betances in the 8th and the 9th, and brings closer Miller in for the 10th, and he loses it. Nationals 8, Yankees 6 in 10 innings.

What difference would it have made it Girardi had let Wilson bat for himself? He certainly could have brought in a different pitcher in the 6th, or left Carpenter (despite the homer he allowed) instead of using Shreve to pitch to 1 batter in the 7th. This was 2 screwups in 1 game -- 2 screwups in 2 innings!

7. May 20. It's 2-2 with the Nats going into the bottom of the 7th. Adam Warren walks 2 batters. He's thrown 98 pitches. The pitcher's spot is not due up in the 8th. Girardi panics and pulls Warren anyway, and Wilson allows what turns out to be the winning run. Nationals 3, Yankees 2.

Major screwups on back-to-back days for the 2nd time in the season, 7 times overall, and we haven't even hit Memorial Day weekend yet.

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8. June 10. It's 4-2 Yankees over the Nats in the top of the 8th. Eovaldi had thrown 97 pitches in 7 innings. This was at home, with the DH. He had retired 6 of his last 7 batters. He was not tiring. He was not injured. There was no rational reason to take him out.

But he allowed a leadoff single in the 8th, and Girardi panicked, and took him out, and brought in Jacob Lindgren. Lindgren got 2 outs, then allowed a game-tying homer. Girardi brought Wilson in for the 9th, and then brought in the horrendous Chris Capuano in for the 10th. Capuano got through the 10th all right. But Girardi left him in for the 11th (which wouldn't have been necessary if he'd let Eovaldi finish the 8th). Nationals 5, Yankees 4.

Moral of the story: Trust Nathan Eovaldi, but never, ever trust Chris Capuano.

9. June 23. It's 6-6 with the Philadelphia Phillies going into the 9th. Sabathia didn't get out of the 5th. But Girardi has already used Branden Pinder for 1 batter, Shreve for 3, and Wilson for 5. He brings Betances in with 1 out in the 8th, but keeps him in for the 9th. Girardi follows Joe Torre's "rule" that you never bring your closer in to pitch a tie game. A stupid "rule." This was a rare occasion when Girardi left a pitcher in too long, after leaving 3 pitchers in for too little. Phillies 11, Yankees 6.

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10. July 7. It's 3-2 Yankees over the Oakland Athletics in the top of the 6th. Eovaldi has thrown 86 pitches. He gets the 1st out. Then Girardi inexplicably takes him out, and brings in Shreve, who gives up a game-tying homer.

Girardi uses Warren in the 7th, Wilson in the 8th, and Betances in the 9th. The game goes to extra innings, and Girardi keeps Betances in, instead of recognizing that Betances is only good for 1 inning, and Betances gives up a game-losing homer. A's 4, Yankees 3 in 10 innings.

10 screwups before the All-Star Break. On a pace for 20, just as I suggested.

11. July 30. It's 6-6 with the Rangers going to the bottom of the 9th. Sabathia did not have a good start. Girardi has already used Wilson for 4 batters, Betances for 7 (a blown save), and brought in Nick Goody to get the last out in the 8th. Instead of bringing in Miller for the 9th,Girardi leaves Goody in, and he walks the leadoff batter. That's when Girardi panics, and brings in Miller. Rangers 7, Yankees 6.

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12. August 7. It's 1-1 in the 7th with the Blue Jays. Eovaldi has thrown 112 pitches, and the last 2 batters have reached base. But 1 of those was on an error. He is not visibly tiring. Girardi replaces him with Wilson. Okay, maybe that was justifiable, as Wilson then got a strikeout.

But then, instead of leaving him in to try to finish the inning, Girardi replaces him, with Betances. Betances, in the 7th? He walks a batter, but gets out of it. He has trouble in the 8th, but gets out of it. Miller gets into trouble in the 9th, but gets out of it. Girardi brings Pinder in to pitch the 10th. Never bring Branden Pinder in to pitch the 10th inning. Or any other inning. Home run. Jays 2, Yankees 1.

I don't want to hear that the Yankees weren't hitting and wouldn't have won anyway: This one is on Girardi.

13. August 11. It's 1-1 with the Cleveland Indians after 6. Rookie sensation Luis Severino has thrown 97 pitches and has been superb. Girardi replaces him. This game goes 16 innings, and Girardi uses Shreve in the 7th, Betances in the 8th, Wilson in the 9th, Miller in the 10th (blowing a save after the Yankees had scored 2 runs in the top of the inning), Warren in the 11th, and then Bryan Mitchell in the 12th, 13th and 14th. Mitchell threw 60 pitches in his 3 innings, not a lot for a "long man."

That's 7 pitchers, 5 of whom -- Severino, Shreve, Wilson, Warren and Mitchell -- each could have gone at least 1 more inning.

Girardi brings Pinder in to pitch the 15th, and leaves him in to pitch the 16th. Well, he should be your last resort, but, as the saying goes, Girardi checked into that resort anyway. Pinder blew the game in the 16th. Indians 2, Yankees 1.

I won't blame Girardi for bringing in Miller when he did, and, certainly, the team should have found a way to score at least 2 runs within 9 innings, let alone within 16, thus preventing Pinder from screwing up the bottom of the 16th. But Girardi blew this one 6 separate times. It was a Tuesday night, otherwise you could say he blew it "six ways to Sunday."

14. August 21. It's 4-3 Indians after 8. The Yankees have just closed it to within 1. We've got the Indians on the ropes. We can win this in the 9th, if only we don't allow any more runs. Girardi brings in Wilson. Indians 7, Yankees 3.

True, we were already losing, but we had a very good chance to win it. Considering how many games I could have counted, but didn't, I have no qualms with including this one.

Interlude. August 23. It's 3-3 with the Indians in the 8th. Girardi had sent Alex Rodriguez up to pinch-hit for catcher John Ryan Murphy.

Then, Girardi, a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan who (aside from the Yankees from 1996 to 1999) spent his entire playing career in the NL (Cubs 1989-92 and 2000-02, Colorado Rockies 1993-95, St. Louis Cardinals 2003), and whose 1st managing job was in the NL (with the 2006 Florida Marlins), forgot that he's in the AL. He makes a double switch: He brings in Betances, and puts him in Murphy's spot in the order, and moves Brian McCann from DH to catcher, thus losing the DH.

Betances then gives the Indians the lead, but at least it was the right inning in which to pitch him, and it's still only 4-3 Indians. But now, we have 8 hitters in the lineup, not 9. That ends up not mattering, and the Indians do win 4-3.

I'm not including this as one of the games Girardi "blew" due to "pitching mismanagement." The game was lost mainly because Betances didn't get the job done on this occasion. But it shows just how bad a manager he's been this season. Seriously, if you can't even remember what League you're in, you shouldn't be managing in either major league.

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15. September 8. It's 1-1 with the Orioles after 8. Masahiro Tanaka has been fantastic. He's thrown 104 pitches. Girardi relieves him anyway, with Shreve. His 3rd pitch: Game-losing home run. Orioles 2, Yankees 1.

16. September 9. It's 3-3 with the Orioles in the 8th. Sabathia had a bad start. Girardi replaces him with Warren, who does fine through the 7th. This time, Girardi blows it because he left a reliever in too long, and Warren allows a home run in the 8th. Girardi replaces him with Nick Rumbelow, who allows 2 walks and a ground-rule double in the 9th. Orioles 5, Yankees 3.

For the 3rd time in the season, Girardi's pitching mismanagement has thrown away games on back-to-back days.

17. September 12. It's 4-4 with the Blue Jays. Pineda had a rough 5th, but has gotten the 1st out in the 6th. He's thrown 98 pitches. At the very least, he should be allowed to finish the inning.

Not according to Joe Girardi's Binder. Girardi goes into musical chairs again, bringing in Wilson for 4 outs, Betances for 4, and Miller for 6. Both teams score in the 8th, and it goes to extra innings, 5-5. Girardi brings Mitchell in to pitch the 11th, and the Jays score 4 runs. Jays 9, Yankees 5.

3 screwups in the span of just 5 days. And this latest one was in a game we absolutely had to win, because it was against those pesky Blue Jays.

18. September 15. It's 3-2 over the Rays. Girardi had started Warren, but let him pitch only 4 innings, 65 pitches. Is Warren a baby?

Girardi let James Pazos pitch to 3 batters, then brought in Rumbelow, who blew the lead. Not that it mattered, but he then blew through Shreve, Pinder, Mitchell and Martin. Rays 6, Yankees 3.

4 screwups in the span of just 8 days.

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4 games in April, 3 in May, 2 in June, 2 in July, 3 in August, 4 in September.

Total: 18.

I guessed that Girardi had blown 20 games with his pitching mismanagement -- that's only counting this season -- and I wasn't far off. And there's still time left to get the 19th and the 20th.

Think about it this way: If Girardi had blown "only" 14 of those games, and not the other 4, the Yankees would now be in 1st place by half a game.

If the Yankees don't at least advance to the American League Division Series, Girardi has to be fired.

Or, to put it another way: If the Yankees don't manage to overtake the Toronto Blue Jays for the AL East title, who do you want managing the Yankees in the Wild Card play-in game?

I don't know about you, but I don't want the guy who managed them in the 18 games mentioned above.

A-Rod Powers Yankee Comeback In Grand Fashion

Last night's Yankee game against the Minnesota Twins was never going to be easy, what with the bullpen being fully used the night before, and the still-shaky CC Sabathia starting. Of all the things CC eats, innings no longer seems to be among them.

CC was fine for the 1st 6 innings. In fact, for the 1st 4, he was perfect. He didn't allow a baserunner until 1 out in the 5th. But a walk, a single and a double led to a Minnesota run.

In the 7th, he gave up a 2-run home run to Miguel Sano, and set up another run that Nick Rumbelow was unable to prevent. Rumbelow is a righthanded Texan, about to turn 24, and was making only his 7th major league appearance.

Former Met Mike Pelfrey started for the Twins, and, except for a double by Carlos Beltran and a single for the 1st major league RBI by Greg Bird, he was really good for 5 innings. The Yankees threatened in the 6th, leading Twins manager Paul Molitor to call on his bullpen, but we got no closer.

It was 4-1 Twins and not looking good when Chase Headley led off the bottom of the 7th with a single to left. Brendan Ryan drew a walk. Jacoby Ellsbury flew to right, deep enough to move Headley over. Brett Gardner drew a walk -- one of those "unintentional intentional walks" -- to load the bases.

The batter was Alex Rodriguez. Funny thing, I don't remember A-Rod hitting his 24th career grand slam, to break the long-standing major league record of Yankee Legend Lou Gehrig.

I'll remember his 25th, though. A-Rod was the 1st batter faced by Twins rookie (but not debuting) reliever J.R. Graham, and Graham wishes it was somebody else. A-Rod crushed a drive to right-center for a grand slam. 5-4 Yankees.

The Yankees didn't stop there. Bird led off the 8th with a single, Didi Gregorius added another, Headley doubled them both home, Ryan sacrificed Headley to 3rd, and Ellsbury singled him home.

Justin Wilson got the 1st 2 outs in the 8th, and Andrew Miller gave us a 4-out save. Yankees 8, Twins 4. WP: Rumbelow (1-0), his 1st major league win, even though he faced just 2 batters and retired only 1 of them. SV: Miller (27). LP: Graham (0-1).

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The Toronto Blue Jays also won, so the Yankees' Magic Number to clinch the American League Eastern Division is reduced to 42... not 41 like we'd hoped. The Jays played an Interleague game against the Philadelphia Phillies, who blew a lead.

The Awkward Moment when a Mets win helps the Yankees: The Mets had an Interleague game of their own, and while their bullpen nearly blew it again, it hung on, and they beat the Baltimore Orioles, the other team in the AL East race.

The Yankees also announced that Bryan Mitchell, victim of a line drive that broke his nose, has been, as a precaution, placed on the 7-day "concussion DL."

This was for the best, as he'd already had a recent concussion in the minor leagues. As Mitchell said himself:

As soon as it hit me, I knew that I had just gotten hit, but my eyes were OK, my jaw was OK. I knew that I was basically alive. I basically said, "I'm all right, let's just get me off the field." That was really it. It was pretty quick. It was bad, though...

I think most of the time they're just playing it cautious. I saw the neurologist today, but given that I had the concussion a month ago down in Scranton, we're kind of trying to play it safe. As of now, everything seems to be pretty good.

That's a relief. We haven't yet gotten to know Mitchell, or get emotionally attached to him. But we don't want any of our players to get hurt, and we certainly don't want them to suffer a permanent impairment.

The Yankees also sent reliever Caleb Cotham, who relieved Mitchell, back down to Scranton. This created 2 open roster spots, and they called up Rumbelow and... oy, God, no... Chris Capuano.

The series with the Twins concludes this afternoon, with Nathan Eovaldi starting against Ervin Santana. Come on, Yankees, we want a sweep! (Translation: Don't let Capuano in the game!)

Another Yankee Outburst Crushes The Scum

Remember how I wondered, during the Yankees' 13-run outburst against the Chicago White Sox on Friday and their 12-run onslaught on Sunday, if they were saving any runs for their arch-enemies this week?

Apparently, they were. I just hope they didn't spend themselves last night, because there's 2 more games against The Scum.

Last night, Masahiro Tanaka started for the Yankees. Doing so for the Red Sox was 23-year-old Henry Owens, making his major league debut. Uh-oh, the proverbial pitcher the Yankees have never seen before.

The Red Sox began the night 13 games behind the 1st place Yankees. So far, I like what I'm seeing.

But, looking at the Red Sox lineup, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Most of the usual suspects are gone. David Ortiz, the big fat lying cheating bastard, is still there as the designated hitter. Mike Napoli is still there at 1st base -- mainly because you can't have 2 DHs, and 1st base is the least taxing field position.

But Dustin Pedroia is injured, and unavailable for this series. They had former San Francisco Giants World Series hero Pablo Sandoval, putting "Kung Fu Panda," who may be even more rotund than Big Papi, at 3rd base -- because the DH and 1st base slots were already occupied. Former Florida Marlins and Los Angeles Dodgers star Hanley Ramirez was in left field, having returned to the Sox, his 1st organization.

Brock Holt? Blake Swihart?J ackie Bradley Jr.? Xander Bogaerts? These sound like names of soap opera characters -- the kind dashing, if dimwitting, young man that the leading lady, tired of her husband's neglect and philandering, uses for her own affair, and then sees them killed by the show's villain of the month. Alejandro De Aza? Maybe a similar character in a telenovela.

Anyway, the Sox' makeshift lineup worked just enough... for a while. For 5 1/2 innings, it was a tight pitching duel. The Yankees struck immediately, with a single by Chris Young, a walk by Alex Rodriguez, and a single by Mark Teixeira. But Owens settled down after that, and the Sox got him 2 runs in the top of the 5th: A double by Napoli, singles by De Aza and Swihart, and a sacrifice fly by Bradley.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, a website which is your friend whether you know it or not, the Yankees began the bottom of the 6th with a 38 percent chance of winning the game. That seems a little low, considering A, how they've been hitting lately; B, the short right-field porch at Yankee Stadium; and C, the quality, or rather lack thereof, of the Red Sox bullpen.

Young led off the inning with a single. A-Rod doubled him over to 3rd. Then Sox manager John Farrell -- a native of New Jersey, a graduate of Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, and himself a former pitcher and pitching coach, so he darn well should have known better -- pulled a blunder that might have come right out of Joe Girardi's Binder Full of Strategies. After just 5 innings and change, having thrown 96 pitches, he pulled Owens for a reliever, Robbie Ross.

Big mistake. Teix singled home young to tie the game. Brian McCann doubled home A-Rod to give the Yanks the lead. Carlos Beltran grounded to 3rd, and Sandoval couldn't hold the runner. 4-2 Yankees.

Sandoval put the Sox right back in the ballgame by leading off the top of the 7th with a home run. Girardi relieved Tanaka with Justin Wilson, but he allowed a hit and a stolen base, so Girardi replaced him with Dellin Betances, who immediately made things worse with a wild pitch, a walk, and a stolen base. But he struck out Holt to keep it a 1-run ballgame.

It didn't stay that way. As with a non-baseball hero of the old Yankee Stadium, 1937-48 Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis, knocking the 2015 Yankees down turned out to be the worst thing the opposition could have done. It didn't knock 'em out, it only made 'em mad.

The Sox ended up using 3 different pitchers in the bottom of the 7th, just like the Yankees in the top of the 7th. Unlike the Yankees, they did not hold their opponents to just 1 run.

The Sox began the inning with Jean Machi on the mound. Jacoby Ellsbury grounded to short, and Bogaerts made a bad throw. Young drew a walk. A-Rod singled home Ellsbury. 5-3.

Farrell brought in Craig Breslow to pitch. (Another soap-opera name.) He struck Teixeira out. Then McCann crushed a home run down the right field line, his 18th dinger on the year. 8-3, and the game was effectively over. According to Baseball-Reference, at this point, the chances of the Yankees winning the game had soared from 38 percent to 99 percent.

But the winning wasn't done -- far from it. Beltran doubled. Chase Headley doubled him home. 9-3. Breslow got Didi Gregorius to fly out, but he walked Brendan Ryan, and now the Yankees had batted around. Ellsbury singled home Headley. 10-3.

Farrell brought in Alexi Ogando. (That sounds more like the name of a girl from a teen drama like One Tree Hill or Pretty Little Liars.) Chris Young welcomed him to the game with a drive down the left-field line. Home run, his 13th of the season.

Then Ogando walked A-Rod, before finally stopping the bleeding by striking Teix out. There were 3 outs in this massive inning, and 2 were Teix Ks. (Don't be mad at him, though: He, along with A-Rod and the protection he provides in the lineup, has been the biggest reason the Yankees are in 1st place.)

13-3. In the inning, the Yankees had scored nine times in the inning. How many times, Ed Rooney? "Nine times!" That's 9 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks and an error.

The TV cameras caught starter Owens in the dugout, in tears. His major league debut, for one of the iconic teams in baseball, against another, in the greatest rivalry, in the most famous stadium, and he'd done very well for 5 innings... and it had all fallen apart, through hardly any fault of his own. And now, so had he.

As anyone who's observed the Red Sox since at least the 1970s can tell you, Jimmy Dugan of A League of Their Own was wrong: There is crying in baseball.

Branden Pinder pitched a scoreless 8th, and Nick Rumbelow a scoreless 9th -- the 2nd game in a row that he's pitched a perfect 9th. And the Yankees sent Rumbelow back down to Scranton this morning, to make roster space for tonight's starter, the much-hyped Luis Severino. "Nice job, kid, now go back to Scranton, and try not to spill any bananas."

Yankees 13, Red Sox 3. We crushed The Scum. WP: Tanaka (8-4). No save. LP: Owens (0-1).

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I saw the Yankees beat the Red Sox 13-3 once. Live. It was July 30, 1999, and it was at Fenway. My favorite live game ever. (My favorite game of any kind remains the one the Yankees played at Shea Stadium on October 26, 2000.)

Lisa Swan, the tasteful half of the Subway Squawkers, got to see last night's game on a friend's dime. She enjoyed it, as you might guess. She paraphrased Robert Duvall's line about napalm in Apocalypse Now: "I love the smell of defeated Red Sox in the morning. It smells like... victory!"

This may be the 1st time the words "smell," "Sox" (especially the Red variety) and "love" have ever been used in the same sentence. Certainly, I wouldn't have expected any Yankee Fan to use that combination! Unless he -- or, as in this case, she -- is a big fan of Apocalypse Now.

As for what Red Sox fans think, "The horror... The horror... " Or, as the guys behind Sox blog Monstah Mash put it:

I’m sure even the kind folks at Subway Squawkers can agree that this was not a game, or evena massacre–this was a 10 kilaton atomb bomb dropped on the collective hopes and dreams of an entire fanbase. The Yankees could have stopped at six or seven runs to thoroughly humiliate us, but no in typical arrogant Yankee fashion they wiped the baselines with us and it has left me standing still with my mouth gaping open in agony and confusion.

Well, boo-hoo, poor you.

The series continues tonight, with Severino making his major league debut, and Steven Wright -- not the existentialist comedian, though he is from Massachusetts and is a big Red Sox fan -- starting for the Red Sox.

Come on you Pinstripes!