Joe Girardi
NO HELP: The Yankees beat the Red Sox last night, 4-3 in 12 innings, despite the questionable decision by manager Joe Girardi (inset) to bat Mark Teixeira cleanup over Robinson Cano. Tex was 0-for-6. (AP; Neil Miller (inset))
Joe Girardi sensed the urgency of Game 161 and replaced a struggling Ivan Nova with rookie David Phelps.
Girardi sensed the urgency of Game 161 and replaced a fading Andruw Jones at designated hitter with a sizzling Eduardo Nunez.
Girardi sensed the urgency of Game 161 and moved the hottest hitter in the world, Robinson Cano, down a spot in the order and replaced him at cleanup with Mark Teixeira, who had played two games in the past 35 days.
Wait. He did what?
Phelps (two runs in 5 1/3 innings) and Nunez (two hits and the Yankees’ lone RBI of the first eight innings) honored decision-making by Girardi that stressed the here and now over the long season.
Which made the Yankees manager’s cleanup choice so baffling. He liked Teixeira’s work against righties. But none of that was recent history because the first baseman has been down with a calf injury. Meanwhile, Cano has been lambasting all pitching, including southpaws.
Teixeira went a meek 0-for-6, stranded nine runners and was the biggest factor in keeping the Yankees from opening a lead early on a Boston team looking for reasons to surrender. Girardi escaped the true wrath of this choice because the Yankees won 4-3 in 12 innings due to the heroics of Raul Ibanez and the ineptitude of the Red Sox.
“I guarantee you that I am the happiest guy in this room,” Teixeira said after Ibanez’s ninth-inning, two-run pinch-hit homer tied the score and his two-out single in the 12th won it 4-3. “It could not have gone worse for me personally. I have thanked Raul 100 times.”
Girardi might offer one thousand thanks. To Ibanez. To a Red Sox lineup that managed one hit in 20 at-bats with men on base. To Andrew Miller, the Red Sox reliever in the 12th, who walked Francisco Cervelli with two outs after getting ahead 0-2. Miller said he was trying to get Cervelli to chase. Keep in mind Cervelli had not had a major league at-bat since Sept. 8 … of 2011. Curtis Granderson followed with a four-pitch walk and Ibanez — a big-hit specialist this year — delivered the winning single.
Now the Yankees can clinch the division today with a win or an Orioles loss. If Baltimore wins and the Yankees lose, the teams play an AL East winner-take-all tomorrow at Camden Yards, the loser having to play the potential one-and-done wild card the following day. If that is the case for the Yankees, Girardi also might be answering to why he left CC Sabathia in to pitch eight innings in a blowout win Monday.
For if the Yankees get to that wild-card game, Girardi almost certainly will turn to Sabathia on short rest to save the season rather than Phil Hughes on full rest. When questioned about putting extra pitches on Sabathia in what was a 9-2 cakewalk Monday, Girardi — among other problematic explanations — said he was taking games one at a time and not thinking ahead to Friday. Well, it is the very job description to manage all potential situations.
And also to put players in position to succeed. He said he was doing that with Teixeira at cleanup because “Teixy is one of our better hitters vs. lefties” and Boston was starting Jon Lester. But this was just Teixeira’s second game back from his calf injury, just his third since Aug. 27. Cano has struggled against lefties this year. But he entered with seven straight multi-hit games in which he was 18-for-29, including 5-for-5 off southpaws.
Cano had another multi-hit game yesterday, both hits off of lefties. Both, though, came leading off innings because Teixeira had concluded the previous innings in failure. Teixeira grounded into double plays in his first two at-bats with first and third and one out, and grounded out with two on in the fifth. With the bases loaded and one out in the ninth, he flied out to center too shallow to score the winning run.
“It doesn’t matter where I hit, I came up in spots where I should have gotten a job done and I didn’t,” Teixeira said.
The Yankees survived the decision yesterday to have Teixeira hit cleanup. It is a decision that we should not see made again before 2013.