Game Five

Game Five wasn’t much apart from watching the Phillies blow AJ Burnett out by the third inning and their sphincter-tightening efforts to blow the game. (Is it just me, or does Burnett always look like he’s about to either cry, or try to rip your head off?)

Now the real fun starts: second-guessing the managers. Girardi has taken advantage of the leisurely pace of postseason scheduling to ride three starters, mainly because he only has three starters he trusts. That’s fine for the first two rounds, as Fox’s added days off make keeping pitchers busy harder than keeping them fresh. The Series still uses the traditional format, which means bringing Sabathia back on three days’ rest means Burnett and Pettitte have to do it, too, or Chad Gaudin need to start Game Five. This minimizes the effectiveness of working Sabathia three times, since the pitcher who loses a start isn’t Gaudin, it’s Pettitte. Not much of a gain for such risk.

So everyone gets three days rest. Maybe it affected Burnett; maybe not. What’s quantifiable is that he got lit up, and now it’s up to Pettitte to close it out or let the Series got o Game Seven. Pettitte actually prefers five days rest instead of the usual four, and wasn’t sharp his last time out, though he still got the win. Bringing him back on three is a definite gamble. Yankees fans have the comfort of Sabathia pitching in Game Seven, but take a look at the record. They’re 1-1 in his two starts so far, and he’s 0-1. He’s pitched well (3.29 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 12-6 strikeouts to walks), but it’s not like Girardi will be sending Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson to the mound to validate his strategy.

At least Girardi knows he’s made a decision and can put things in his best pitcher’s hands. It will be Cole Hamels’s turn to pitch for Game Seven, and he’s been, to put it politely, terrible. Yakked up a lead so quick in Game Three Penn and Teller couldn’t have got the bullpen involved in time. Then he was quoted after the game as saying he can’t wait for this season to be over. Maybe he’s just frustrated and it slipped out wrong. It can’t make Charlie Manuel too secure to know his potential season-saving pitcher isn’t sure he wants to be there. At least he has an option: J.A. Happ was probably Philadelphia’s best pitcher down the stretch, apart from Lee. Problem is, with the spread out schedule, Happ hasn’t started in a month,

I told the beloved Spousal Equivalent I’d officially declare a man crush on Chase Utley if he hit another home run about five minutes before he hit another home run. I just hope he washes his hands after he touches his hair if we’re going to shake, or I’ll spill more beer than I drink from the glasses slipping out of my hands.

Joe Buck needs his depth perception checked. He repeatedly announces pop-ups on balls that are caught near the warning track. It’s like he’s channeling Harry Caray.

A-Rod Watch – two for four, three RBI. His Series average is up to .222. Fair’s fair, and he was on his game last night.

Game Five Tim McCarver Moment – It’s harder to get three strikes than it is to get two.

Game Five Tim McCarver Moment (Honorable Mention) – “In case you’re wondering why he’s pinch hitting Posada in the fifth inning, it’s so he can get an extra at bat out of him, as opposed to waiting for the seventh or eighth.” You might want to mention that Molina only played because he’s Burnett’s pet catcher, and is a defensive specialist. The Yanks were down 6-1; they needed lumber.

Game Four

Girardi rolled the dice and won. Sabathia wasn’t lights out (10 base runners in 6.2 innings for a WHIP of 1.49), but was good enough. He can’t wait for the Series to end so he doesn’t have to pitch to Chase Utley anymore.

Manuel rolled the dice, too, in a different way, and did okay. Cliff Lee had never started on three days’ rest, and he already had 260+ innings on his arm this year. If Manuel started him and he blew up, there was no good fallback position. Blanton was fine after a shaky first inning; he wasn’t the reason the Phillies lost. (Brad Lidge, Brad Lidge, Brad Lidge.)

Fox has gone overboard with their heavy-handed approach to making MLB kiss their asses. The first three games of the Series started at 7:57. Last night they said they’d be on after The OT, their NFL post-game show. Football games all finish in the 7:15-7:30 time frame, the OT runs, and Curt, Terry, Howie, Michael, and Jimmy spend ten minutes bullshitting to get us to 8:00, when the baseball pre-game show started. It lasted twenty minutes, with no segment longer than two before commercial interruption. First pitch was actually 8:22. Television used to allow viewers the illusion they were showing commercials to pay for the programming. Now they’ve abandoned all pretense. Shows are broadcast because the suits don’t think they can get us to watch nothing but commercials for hours at a time. They would if they could, though.

Fox’s insistence on pushing baseball back into the November sweeps period raises an interesting question: What will they do if conditions dictate a World Series game on the night of a presidential election? Not cover the election? Or make baseball take yet another day off?

The late start must have pushed the game beyond home plate umpire Mike Everitt’s bed time. Anything close might as well have been decided with a coin toss. No consistency at all. His no call, then half-assed safe signal on Ryan Howard’s game-tying second inning run—where Howard missed the plate and Everitt appeared to know it—was disgraceful.

Posada didn’t hold the ball; Howard missed the plate. The correct call is what Everitt did at first: nothing. He’s neither safe nor out. Posada knew he hadn’t made the tag, assumed Howard was safe, and threw to second to try to get the trail runner. Howard walked off the field. Everitt saw him leaving, and gave a sorta kinda “safe” signal. Howard should have been called out when he got to the dugout. Everitt apparently didn’t want a big argument from the Phillies, and figured the Yankees were good with it, as Posada neglected to go after Howard. And they pay Everitt for this.

McCarver wondered why Posada gave Sabathia multiple signs, even when there was no runner on second. A better question would have been, why was he flashing signs at all? Posada went out to talk to him after virtually every pitch for some batters.

A-Rod watch – A double and hit by pitch in five plate appearances. Run scored, run batted in, and a strikeout. Series average: .143.

Game Four Tim McCarver Moment - Comparing Posada to Tom Brady because he was “calling audibles” during his countless trips to the mound.