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Greg Luzinski of shortstops Eduardo Nunez will make at least one key error. Admittedly, hard to resist putting that empty .250 against RHP in the lineup.
If Girardi wanted to shake things up, why not Slappy at short? I can understand that he wants to get his best defensive outfield out there in Comerica, but Nunez I don’t get.
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because arod hasn’t played shortstop in years; the angles and the throws are sufficiently different that just to throw him out there is a risk not worth taking.
now, admittedly, as i’m sure rea remembers, the tigers once won a world series with mickey stanley shifted to shortstop from center field, but he had at least been played the last 9 games of the season there as mayo smith was prepping for the series.
which isn’t to say that nunez doesn’t have a high likelihood of making an error….
If the alternative was a major league shortstop, I would agree. But it isn’t.
Hey, you don’t even think jeter is a major league shortstop!
But now it’s time to concentrate on the game….
well I am not sure any amount of great fielding could make Ray Oyler’s 0.135/0.213/0.186 20 OPS+ hitting
Because Jeter says Nay.
No, A-Rod says “Neigh”. What, isn’t that what centaurs say?
I’m just impressed that Girardi is allowing the readership of the Daily News to fill out his lineup card.
Ok, one more comment. Arod has looked abysmal against righties. Detroit is pitching one of (if not the) best righthanders in the game.
you want to argue nix over nunez, fine, but suggesting that it’s fan blowhardism not to play arod?
Well, he’s .333 against Verlander with 3 HRs in 24 at bats.
I’m just saying that A-Rod and Swisher give them a better chance to win than anyone on the bench.
The fuck?
Not the wat they’re swinging the bats right now, and I continue to note that arod has done zilch in 120 at bats since coming back from the broken hand: he’s damaged goods right now.
More than that, Chavez was a better hitter than A-Rod against RHP over the course of the entire season. And as for Swisher, he got benched for Gardner, an All-Star caliber outfielder who’s been hurt all year. You could say that Granderson should have sat, but the notion that Swisher >>> Gardner is laughable.
The notion that a player with a career OPS of 118+ is better than a player with career OPS+ of 93 who hasn’t played in six months is “laughable”? Brien, you’re wrong here, and your buying into the kind of short-sighted, panic moves which made the Steinbrenner Yankees a laughingstock until Torre arrived and put the old fool in his place and restored order. If Arod and swisher are good enough to be your everyday players in the regular season, then they must be your best options in the playoffs. You dance with the one you brought. It’s as simple as that. Arod and swisher are the superior talents, you play them and hope that they break out of their slumps.
1. Chavez was an everyday player against RHP all season long too, as was Ibanez, so unless you stick Ibanez in LF, you by definition have to bench at least one regular last night.
2. Look, all of the big picture stuff is great and what not, but you can’t divorce these decisions from the context of the moment. That’s what killed the Yankees in the ALDS last season when Girardi stuck with a three out wall of A-Rod/Tex/Swisher between his two best hitters in the series waiting for those guys to start hitting. They never did, and many runs were squandered because of that. A-Rod has been terrible against righties since coming back from a broken wrist (another variable you have to account for in some way). Swisher looks awful at the plate (though not as bad as Granderson), has a history of pressing in the playoffs, and admitted after Game 2 that the boos (read, pressure) were getting to him. That stuff does matter in the context of a short series where you just don’t have time to wait for the game of averages to balance out.
From one of your colleagues at SNY. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9qqvm-LT8
Yeah, I’d get small sample sized tattooed on me during the course of the regular season. But the baseball postseason is itself an inherently small sample of games, so that’s really neither here nor there.
I would also like to add that Jeter was terrible against righties the last two seasons (.633 OPS in 2010 and .667 OPS in 2011), yet he wasn’t benched against righties while having subpar playoff series in either seasons.
I just don’t understand how a guy and go from being your number three hitter in the regular season to not good enough to start in the playoffs. Nor do I understand benching your everyday rightfielder who was a 3.5 WAR player this year for an inferior offensive player who had only 4 at bats since April, particularly where Cashman recently conceded that that it would by “unfair” to bat him against major league pitchers right now.
In the spirit of the debate season, my advice to Girardi would be to stay the course, and keep your binder full of small sample size stats closed.
Yeah, I’d get small sample sized tattooed on me during the course of the regular season.
I know. And that’s why I’m surprised that you are buying into the panic moves.
You’re seven games into the playoff entering yesterday, there’s really no such thing as a panic move when you have reasonable alternatives for struggling players.
Chavez was an everyday player against RHP all season
1)278 ABs is not an everyday player. 2)That 278 ABs follows three years in which he was mediocre and four years in which he was completely useless. Since A-Rod doesn’t seem to have any power against RHP after his injury playing him is still defensible, but Chavez doing nothing in the postseason was eminently predictable.
108 games and 273 plate appearances against right handed pitchers is fairly regular playing time for a platoon player, especially if you focus on the period between Gardner getting hurt and the Yankees acquiring Ichiro.
In any case, I wouldn’t say that Chavez not getting a hit wasn’t foreseeable, but for the most part nothing is unforeseeable in the context of the playoffs. And when your best hitter sets a postseason record for consecutive at bats without a hit, well…
In any case I said this last night, and I was quite serious: Chavez’s 3rd inning fly out traveled farther than every ball A-Rod has put in play against righties in the postseason combined. That’s cold comfort, but it’s not nothing either.
Sherm, it’s only as simple as that in strat omatic baseball.
In real life, you’re entitled to take into account injury, form, matchups, state of mind: all the things that result from human beings playing the game.
Arod, for example, has been declining for 4 years, he hasn’t hit righties well all season, he’s done nothing since the broken hand, and he isn’t catching up to fastballs. To go back to my point from a few days ago, he is no more his career numbers right now than willie mays was in the ’73 series.
No wholly this, but mostly this. The problem with laying out numbers to make the decision is that the counterpoint isn’t wholly about numbers. Consider A-Rod, for example:
1. His power was down all season against right handed pitchers.
2. He’s still recovering from a broken wrist, which tends to continue to affect hitters for months after they return.
3. His numbers have been dreadful against RHP since returning from the DL.
4. He’s being completely over powered by same side pitchers in the playoffs. He’s not even having bad at bats so much as he just isn’t hitting fastballs in the zone.
All of these are entirely fair things to consider when drawing out a lineup give that, unlike in July or August, you don’t have weeks to wait for someone to get their timing, have their wrist heal, or whatever. Especially considering that his replacement was an everyday player against righties who performed better as well.
Eric Chavez is 0 for 14 with no walks this post-season, in case anybody hasn’t noticed. But at least he’s not trying to get laid after being removed from games.
So we have two guys who don’t have a hit against righties, with one who had better offensive numbers against them in the regular season AND has had more competitive at bats during the postseason. Plus he’s a better defender.
So yeah, you start Chavez. Duh.
Tiger radio announcers claimed that a Yankee player had told them it was a relief to come to Comerica Park and play before a more friendly crowd.
Also too, you could at least credit the right muse.
Isn’t it going to be win one for the Jeter?
I mean, like most fans of teams that rarely contend, I hate the Yankees. But LCS and WS sweeps are bad for baseball.
Not in this case.
Nuñez? NUUñññEEZZZ!!!
Perfectly serviceable major league utility infielder Jayson Nix on the bench, but he was hitless in G2 and Rod 0-18 versus RHP in postseason. However more broadly, I’m not sure that your post was worth leaving the masturbatorium in your palais near Mount Royal. You can try to do much better! There is no glee in your hate, which makes it banal and sad. I mean: no reference to today’s NYPost story, come on!
Not much interest in the playoffs on LGM, even with at least one Reds fan involved. Phoning it in SS material doesn’t really count.
If Hughes is going to pitch 3, who plays SS might not really matter.
Greg Luzinski … now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years.
True story … I was at a White Sox game in 1983, can’t remember if this was Cleveland or Boston, and Luzinski legitimately stole second. He was on first, no one else on base, the defense was ignoring him, he had a small lead, and he took off early in the pitcher’s wind-up (pitcher didn’t bother to stretch – I mean, hell, it was Luzinski). He got such a jump the catcher didn’t bother to throw.
The Bull was fantastic with the Phillies. .988 OPS in 1978.
He was a fantastic hitter. His fielding, on that turf in the Vet, was painful to watch.
His fielding, on that turf in the Vet, was painful to watch.
But he compensated for that with his blinding speed!
does Nunez turn to face third base?
“Pitcher Change: Clay Rapada replaces David Phelps”. Did not take long.
Well, someone made an error that led to a run. Played over A-Rod. Not at SS though.
And yes, I know I’m responsible for that leadoff HR in the ninth.
Time to bring in Valverde…..
The LOOGY goes LTWOGY…after making it interesting.
Nunez goes yard! Girardi’s a genius!
Well that escalated quickly.
Holy shit! It’s the 9th, the go ahead runs are on base and Ibanez is at the plate?
Who writes this stuff?
Don’t know, but has helluva sense of humor.
Yanks not being the Cards, eventually a third strike was made before going ahead.
Great game; better team won.
would have been a bit better if the Yanks bats actually did anything before the 9th inning, which apparently is when they come alive (to some extent). Gutsy pitching performances though.
I did say, in scott’s preview that I didn’t think the yanks could score enough to win, but I didn’t expect to be this correct.
Even so, there’s no disgrace in not getting a big hit off verlander.
would have been a bit better if the Yanks bats actually did anything before the 9th inning
(1) No it wouldn’t.
(2)If you think the problem is the Yankee bats, you’re missing what’s happening. The Tigers have the best top 4 starters in baseball.
Indeed. The Tigers pitchers are so phenomenally awesome and fantastic that they held the Yankees to 12 runs (outside of one outlier inning) over five games in a series in which the Yankees were playing the Orioles!
Truly if there isn’t a four way tie for the Cy Young Award and a six way tie foe MVP with Cabrera and Infante it will be the greatest injustice ever perpetrated by the Detroit hating baseball writers.
In other news, Tigers’ fans are the new Angels’ fans.
Apparently Verlander has to pitch somewhat poorly to get the fawning national attention these days.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/30177/its-turning-into-the-year-of-verlander
he said the best top 4 starters, not the four best starters
Sursly?
Well, “best top 4 starters” is word-for-word what I said.
In other words, no other team can throw out a 4-starter rotation better than Verlander/Scherzer/Fister/ Sanchez. That does not, of course, imply that Sanchez is the 4th best starter in the league.
We understood, and without doing any research, I can confidently state that several teams have a better top four, including the Rays, Nationals, Angels and Giants to name a few off the top of my head.
I meant “sursly” as in “you didn’t recognize the facetiousness that literally covers you if you’re withing five feet of that comment?”
No Brien. Three way tie for AL Cy Young. Anibal Sanchez gets NL Cy-Young.
Verlenader is the best pitcher in baseball and will probably win another Cy-Young this year, but the Tigers’ starting pitching behind him is merely good, not great. Hell, you could argue that the Yankees top four right now (including Hughes) is just as good, if not better.
There’s nothing to say Sanchez can’t win in BOTH leagues.
Oh, my. That was . . . nerve-racking, but ultimately amazingly fine.
I can live with this. Obama v Romney had me tonight. Debates don’t matter? Not this year. Yankees’ wins correlate (maybe) with Dem presidential wins? Maybe not this year. (Or maybe this year, too — being down three will be the Yankees’ turn to upset precedent-but-one? I’d be more than okay with that.)