Told you so. Joe Girardi can say what he wants now. Jimmy Rollins talked the talk before the series, predicting that his Phillies would win in five games. But Girardi, whose bold bullpen calls were questioned during the postseason and who made the controversial decision to use his three starting pitchers on three days’ rest, walked the walk and quietly earned his vindication last night.
Along with a championship ring.
“There’s a fork in the road on every decision you have to make, where you make a left or you make a right,” GM Brian Cashman said of Girardi’s decisions during the season, “and he chose the right direction it seems like every way.”
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Especially in the World Series. In his first postseason as a manager, Girardi not only captured the 11 wins you need for a World Series trophy, but his pitching strategy helped the Yankees do so. Girardi used CC Sabathia on three days’ rest in the ALCS, and it worked: Sabathia was brilliant in Game 4 on short rest and eventually picked up the ALCS MVP.
But this round, Girardi went further. The Fall Classic schedule was structured differently, meaning if Girardi wanted to use three starters, he’d have to pitch Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte all on short rest. He did. And though Burnett got rocked in Game 5, the Yankees were victorious in Sabathia’s Game 4 and Pettitte’s Game 6.
Pettitte was the most telling, because Sabathia had pitched on short rest recently, but Pettitte hadn’t pitched on three days’ rest since Sept. 30, 2006 and hadn’t done it in the playoffs since Oct. 19, 2003. But in last night’s clincher, though he wasn’t brilliant, Pettitte was certainly adequate, going 5 2/3 innings and allowing three runs.
Girardi took home three World Series championships as a player (1996, 1998, 1999), and when he got hired as manager before last season, he opted for jersey No. 27 — representing the goal of getting a 27th world championship for the Yankees. Girardi has it now. Thanks to his team — and to himself.
“The joy is the same, but it’s a different type of joy,” he said of winning as a player and as a manager. “As a player it’s what you dream about ever since you were a little boy, and for me it was listening to Curt Gowdy and do all the World Series games.
“As a manager, you still have that joy, but the joy is for other people, because you know as a player what it takes to win a championship.”