BOSTON – Joe Girardi pours over tapes and scouting reports and sta tistical breakdowns, and somehow in all of that diligent study he missed one item:
DO NOT LET MANNY RAMIREZ BEAT YOU.
If there were a 10 Commandments for Yankee managers when facing the Red Sox, avoiding Ramirez in big spots whenever possible is probably No. 1.
Girardi, in accord with Mike Mussina, somehow decided that working to Ramirez with a base open and Boston down a run was favorable to facing Kevin Youkilis with the bases loaded.
Youkilis is a nice player, but Ramirez is a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer with an endless highlight reel of wrecking the Yankee spirit. Ramirez responded as the script would suggest, crushing a first-pitch two-run double that moved Boston ahead for good in the sixth of what would be a 4-3 triumph. Mussina blamed a bad pitch. But it starts with a bad decision.
“That is a decision I made and I have to live with it,” Girardi said.
Girardi recognized this as “the most impactful decision” he has made strategically in 12 games as the Yankees’ manager. It is the kind of decision that you can prepare for as a heady catcher and a season in charge of the Marlins. But there is nothing like having to choose when it is your final call. Yankees-Red Sox. At Fenway Park. Game on the line. Let’s put it this way: Nothing that happened in any Marlin game in 2006 will stir debate and criticism like this preference in the second week of this season.
The Yanks led 2-1. There was one out, second and third. To that point, Mussina not only was without a strikeout, he did not even have a swing and miss. Yet, he whiffed David Ortiz on a 1-2 curveball. In the recent past, the option would probably have been to walk the lefty Ortiz to try to set up a double play against the righty Ramirez since Ortiz has caused at least as much Yankee misery as Ramirez.
But this is not that Ortiz. This Ortiz looks miserable at the plate right now, indecisive and lethargic with his swing. That influenced the decision to go after him. It was like a blessing to not have to pick poison between Ortiz and Ramirez. That choice was made for the Yankees with the way this Ortiz is hitting.
However, the Yanks could not have felt the same way about Ramirez. In his previous at-bat, he had hit his seventh career homer off Mussina, the second most by any player against Mussina. That gave him 1,613 career RBIs. Youkilis, on deck, had 204.
Girardi, not pitching coach Dave Eiland, went to the mound to discuss the situation. Mussina informed his manager he felt equal against Ramirez and Youkilis. He feared that simply walking Manny and loading the bases would not permit him to nibble against the very discerning Youkilis, and that he would turn Youkilis into an even better hitter by being forced to throw his tepid fastball over the plate. So Mussina told Girardi he would work carefully to Ramirez and, if he fell behind 2-0, would then walk him. Girardi, with the potential of the overriding vote, concurred.
“Moose felt better with wiggle room,” Girardi said.
Mussina tried to execute a fastball down and away, a pitch designed to be off the plate that either tempts an overaggressive Manny to swing or to simply take Ball 1.
“When Manny is up I have to nibble at the corners and I threw it right down the middle. . . . We had a plan and it took one pitch for it to fall apart.”
Ramirez sent a laser that split right-center. The two-run double made it 3-2. Mussina was removed. Brian Bruney gave up an RBI single to Youkilis. Who knows how Mussina would have handled Youkilis with the sacks filled. We never saw it.
“It looks like we were stupid and I went after Manny and that really wasn’t the idea,” Mussina said.
The problem, however, is that trying to walk the fine line with Ramirez opens the possibility for what occurred. If Youkilis beats the Yanks in that spot, so be it. You sleep if Youkilis beats you. But when it is Ramirez – when you break Commandment No. 1 of Yankees-Red Sox – sleep should be harder as that Ramirez highlight reel gets even longer.