The fans who hung around Yankee Stadium through a 131-minute rain delay Wednesday night were treated to less than scintillating baseball when play resumed. They witnessed the much-anticipated debut of Royce Ring, who gave way to Dustin Moseley, who was replaced by Chad Gaudin, who gave up back-to-back homers in the seventh that buried the Yankees in their 7-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. Jonathan Albaladejo followed Gaudin.
“Sometimes I get some questions and people don’t understand why I’m doing certain things,” Manager Joe Girardi said before the game. “But it’s what my heart and gut, and what we talk about, tells me to do.”
Practically every day Girardi says that the Yankees’ goal is to win a division title, not fall into the American League’s wild-card berth. The way he used the bullpen, deploying rarely used relievers in a one-run affair against the team chasing them, was his first significant decision during a game that he made with an eye toward the playoffs. Last Monday in Tampa Bay, he turned to Gaudin and Sergio Mitre because several relievers were overworked and unavailable.
Without only Dave Robertson, who will rest the next few days after having a magnetic resonance imaging test on his back, Girardi had a full complement of pitchers to succeed A. J. Burnett, whose night was cut short after allowing one run in three innings. But Girardi opted to give his most reliable relievers extra rest.
The outcome was predictable. Moseley, who had not pitched since Sept. 12, gave up five hits and one run. Gaudin, given additional responsibility in Robertson’s absence, topped him by allowing three in an inning and two-thirds, including those consecutive homers in the seventh to Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria that extended the Rays’ lead to 5-2.
The bullpen’s ineptitude overshadowed two more hits from Derek Jeter and Lance Berkman’s first homer with the Yankees to slice their lead in the East over Tampa Bay to one and a half games. The Yankees (92-60) also fell into a tie with Minnesota for home-field advantage throughout the A.L. playoffs.
An effective Burnett is crucial to championship aspirations, which is why Girardi summoned him last Wednesday into his office at Tropicana Field. Burnett had not done anything wrong. To the contrary, Girardi felt it was a good time to offer some positive reinforcement.
“I didn’t want him to forget that I’m looking at what’s ahead of us, not behind us,” Girardi said Tuesday. “You can learn from what’s behind you, but you can’t really change it. So don’t try to make up your season in the last few starts.”
Resisting that temptation might be challenging if your statistics through 30 starts reek of underperformance: a 10-13 record, 5.08 earned run average and the most base runners allowed per nine innings (14.27) in the league. But Burnett faced similar circumstances, albeit on a smaller scale, last year — a terrible August, an encouraging September — and restored confidence heading into the playoffs. Before rain abbreviated his night for the second time in three starts, Burnett impressed with the movement and command of his pitches. “It’s not going to set me back,” Burnett said of the lengthy delay. “I still feel like I’m where I need to be heading into the right time.”
When the playoffs begin in two weeks, Burnett will be part of a four-man rotation. Girardi offered his strongest hint yet Wednesday about the composition, saying that he is leaning toward leaving out the rookie Ivan Nova. “I’m not going to make a decision today, but he has the least amount of experience and I’ll leave it at that,” he said.
Any combination of three victories and Boston losses will secure a playoff berth, and the earliest the Yankees could clinch would be Friday, when they host the Red Sox. As soon as that happens, the Yankees can begin aligning their rotation for the division series. Their Game 1 starter will be C. C. Sabathia, who expects his start next week to be pushed back three days to next Friday in Boston to put him on normal rest heading into the Oct. 6 opener.
“I’d rather have the rest now than later,” said Sabathia, who opposes David Price on Thursday night.
That was Jeter’s feeling, too, when, in the wake of a 1-for-7 game in Texas that dropped his average to a season-low .260, he received a day off on Sept. 11. He used that extra time to work with the hitting coach Kevin Long in an intense one-day tutorial that has produced staggering changes. Since incorporating Long’s suggestions, Jeter is hitting .357 in 42 at-bats. The primary adjustment involved shortening Jeter’s stride. Long noticed that Jeter’s left foot was moving toward the plate instead of toward the mound as he prepared to swing, a flaw that left him vulnerable to inside pitches and prevented him from making solid contact.
“Lately, what you’ve seen is a guy whose head is staying still,” Long said. “He’s much more direct to the baseball.”
In the same Rangers Ballpark batting cage where Curtis Granderson began retooling his hitting mechanics — “everything happens in Texas,” Long said, laughing — Jeter swung and swung and swung some more, about 300 times, Long estimated. The next afternoon he drove in the Yankees’ only run against Cliff Lee and also walked twice. His ground-ball rate has decreased, and Long said Jeter was elevating the ball more regularly. In the off-season, when there is more time for private sessions, Long said he hoped to work even more with Jeter.
“It took a while for me to get comfortable,” Jeter said. “If you’re hitting .450 or .150, it doesn’t make a difference. Once you get to the playoffs, nobody cares too much about what you did in the regular season.”
“Sometimes I get some questions and people don’t understand why I’m doing certain things,” Manager Joe Girardi said before the game. “But it’s what my heart and gut, and what we talk about, tells me to do.”
Practically every day Girardi says that the Yankees’ goal is to win a division title, not fall into the American League’s wild-card berth. The way he used the bullpen, deploying rarely used relievers in a one-run affair against the team chasing them, was his first significant decision during a game that he made with an eye toward the playoffs. Last Monday in Tampa Bay, he turned to Gaudin and Sergio Mitre because several relievers were overworked and unavailable.
Without only Dave Robertson, who will rest the next few days after having a magnetic resonance imaging test on his back, Girardi had a full complement of pitchers to succeed A. J. Burnett, whose night was cut short after allowing one run in three innings. But Girardi opted to give his most reliable relievers extra rest.
The outcome was predictable. Moseley, who had not pitched since Sept. 12, gave up five hits and one run. Gaudin, given additional responsibility in Robertson’s absence, topped him by allowing three in an inning and two-thirds, including those consecutive homers in the seventh to Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria that extended the Rays’ lead to 5-2.
The bullpen’s ineptitude overshadowed two more hits from Derek Jeter and Lance Berkman’s first homer with the Yankees to slice their lead in the East over Tampa Bay to one and a half games. The Yankees (92-60) also fell into a tie with Minnesota for home-field advantage throughout the A.L. playoffs.
An effective Burnett is crucial to championship aspirations, which is why Girardi summoned him last Wednesday into his office at Tropicana Field. Burnett had not done anything wrong. To the contrary, Girardi felt it was a good time to offer some positive reinforcement.
“I didn’t want him to forget that I’m looking at what’s ahead of us, not behind us,” Girardi said Tuesday. “You can learn from what’s behind you, but you can’t really change it. So don’t try to make up your season in the last few starts.”
Resisting that temptation might be challenging if your statistics through 30 starts reek of underperformance: a 10-13 record, 5.08 earned run average and the most base runners allowed per nine innings (14.27) in the league. But Burnett faced similar circumstances, albeit on a smaller scale, last year — a terrible August, an encouraging September — and restored confidence heading into the playoffs. Before rain abbreviated his night for the second time in three starts, Burnett impressed with the movement and command of his pitches. “It’s not going to set me back,” Burnett said of the lengthy delay. “I still feel like I’m where I need to be heading into the right time.”
When the playoffs begin in two weeks, Burnett will be part of a four-man rotation. Girardi offered his strongest hint yet Wednesday about the composition, saying that he is leaning toward leaving out the rookie Ivan Nova. “I’m not going to make a decision today, but he has the least amount of experience and I’ll leave it at that,” he said.
Any combination of three victories and Boston losses will secure a playoff berth, and the earliest the Yankees could clinch would be Friday, when they host the Red Sox. As soon as that happens, the Yankees can begin aligning their rotation for the division series. Their Game 1 starter will be C. C. Sabathia, who expects his start next week to be pushed back three days to next Friday in Boston to put him on normal rest heading into the Oct. 6 opener.
“I’d rather have the rest now than later,” said Sabathia, who opposes David Price on Thursday night.
That was Jeter’s feeling, too, when, in the wake of a 1-for-7 game in Texas that dropped his average to a season-low .260, he received a day off on Sept. 11. He used that extra time to work with the hitting coach Kevin Long in an intense one-day tutorial that has produced staggering changes. Since incorporating Long’s suggestions, Jeter is hitting .357 in 42 at-bats. The primary adjustment involved shortening Jeter’s stride. Long noticed that Jeter’s left foot was moving toward the plate instead of toward the mound as he prepared to swing, a flaw that left him vulnerable to inside pitches and prevented him from making solid contact.
“Lately, what you’ve seen is a guy whose head is staying still,” Long said. “He’s much more direct to the baseball.”
In the same Rangers Ballpark batting cage where Curtis Granderson began retooling his hitting mechanics — “everything happens in Texas,” Long said, laughing — Jeter swung and swung and swung some more, about 300 times, Long estimated. The next afternoon he drove in the Yankees’ only run against Cliff Lee and also walked twice. His ground-ball rate has decreased, and Long said Jeter was elevating the ball more regularly. In the off-season, when there is more time for private sessions, Long said he hoped to work even more with Jeter.
“It took a while for me to get comfortable,” Jeter said. “If you’re hitting .450 or .150, it doesn’t make a difference. Once you get to the playoffs, nobody cares too much about what you did in the regular season.”
