Let’s begin by stipulating: Yup, Joe Girardi exhibited poor form by whining about the umpires after the Yankees’ offense executed a tribute to the NHL — a lockout — in the American League Championship Series Game 2 3-0 loss to the Tigers. He should have credited the Tigers’ pitchers, vowed to show up refreshed tomorrow in Detroit and called it a night.
And then let’s quickly move beyond that and recognize the greater truth of what went down yesterday at Yankee Stadium: It is utterly ridiculous that bad officiating plays such an important role in such important games when it can be avoided so easily.
“In this day and age when we have instant replay available to us, it’s got to change,” Girardi said, in his strongest comments yet on the issue. “Too much is at stake. We play 235 days to get to this point and two calls go against us.”
“Yeah, let’s have instant replay,” he said later in his news conference. “And … not just home run, fair, foul. Let’s have instant replay.”
The play that got Girardi’s goat — and got him thrown out of the game for his first career postseason ejection — occurred in the eighth inning, with the Yankees trailing 1-0, two outs and Detroit’s Omar Infante on first base.
Former Yankees prospect Austin Jackson grounded a single to right field, and Infante tagged second base and strolled a few feet toward third base, prompting Nick Swisher to throw to Robinson Cano at second. Cano tagged Infante, only to see second-base umpire Jeff Nelson call Infante safe. The Tigers proceeded to score two runs in the inning.
“Yeah, I was surprised,” Infante admitted. “I was thinking he’d call out, but I think maybe he confused stuff [involving the location of Infante’s hand], so he has to call safe in that situation.”
Infante was right. Said Nelson: “I told [Girardi] that the hand got in before [Cano] tagged him in the chest. … The hand did not get in before the tag. The call was incorrect.”
Cano also received a rough break in the loss in Game 1, when first-base ump Rob Drake called him out on a bang-bang play in the second inning. Had Cano been safe, the Yankees would have scored a run and kept the inning going.
Asked if he favored instant replay, Cano said, “Of course. I was safe [in Game 1], and I had him at second base at five feet (in Game 2).”
Joe Torre, the former Yankees manager who now works as Major League Baseball’s executive vice president of baseball operations, attended the game and told The Post, “We want all of the plays right, there’s no question. We’re not turning our back on it. Certainly, everything’s magnified when you get to the postseason. Rightfully so. Over 162 games, things usually even out.
“Detroit benefited by this. If [there’s] somebody that gets the good end of it, that doesn’t make it right doing it. So we’ve spent a lot of time on this. What Joe I’m sure is interested in having done, we’re certainly going to look into it.”
This wasn’t the first time Girardi voiced such public support for instant replay, but it served as the largest setting and he spoke without qualifications. In the past, he has endorsed the expansion of instant replay as long as it didn’t take up too much time.
Last night, he said, “I have been thrown out of games enough to know it would be quicker to get the call right or wrong or right on replay than for me to go out there and argue. And they talk about the flow of the game.”
The notion of the “human element” is antiquated. If there had been a power failure at the Stadium, with the lights going out, would we have shrugged and said, “Electricians make mistakes. That’s the human element”? Of course not.
Rip into Girardi and his players all you want for terrible timing and for questionable sportsmanship. Then take a step back and acknowledge there’s no reason for this great game to be dragged down by a refusal to move forward, especially because commissioner Bud Selig has been so forward-thinking on many other issues.
It has been a marvelous October because people have excelled at their jobs. Why mar that because of a job performance well beneath excellence that can be easily corrected?