We've had a lot of struggles against the Rays this season, so strategy was critical here....and Boone folded.
Game one was good, and it damn well should've been with Gerrit Cole on the mound. The Yankees did what they needed to do and we won. But...I'm still stuck on game two and game three was just bad.
Look, the Yankees complicated the situation in game two with Deivi Garcia. There was no reason to try and treat this like an "opener" situation that the Yankees have done before. It worked with Chad Green in the past but, we've already had challenges this season with the Rays....why complicate it?
Why not let Garcia go out there and pitch for longer and see what he had? If he tanked then sure, pull him but considering that the ALDS series has no planned off days, why not try and get some length out of your starters so the bullpen isn't overworked? The idea shouldn't change in the postseason.
But it did. I get it, Boone wanted J.A. Happ, the lefty out there to try and neutralize the Rays lefty heavy lineup. I understand the logic, but it didn't work and we didn't even give Garcia a chance to see if he could neutralize the Rays on his own. Boone pulled the trigger too fast....
And last night I was really hoping for more out of Masahiro Tanaka. He is our proven and experienced postseason guy and he threw WAY too many sliders last night and the Rays just sat back and waited on it. Sure, Tanaka didn't pitch well but Boone also deserves some of the blame. As a manager he is responsible for making the decisions that put your team in winning scenarios. I really feel like he fails at this more often than not in the playoffs especially.
So now we are at a MUST WIN game four....or we sleep until spring again. Our fate lies in the hands of Boone and Jordan Montgomery and I don't feel so good about that. I still believe he can contribute to the Yankees but this hasn't been his year. He finished the regular season with a 5.11 ERA and his worst start came against the Rays on September 2nd. I hope he learned a lot from that appearance, because we need him now more than ever.
I'm crossing every body part I have tonight, because I am not ready for the season to end. I'm ready to get Cole some backup because he needs it. I'm ready for the pitching to get their act together because Cole can't do it all, and I'm ready for Aaron Boone to stop being a BONEHEAD!
--Jeana Bellezza-Ochoa
BYB Managing Editor
Twitter: @nyprincessj
Boone is just a Cashman puppet.He does what they tell him to do.Then on the close pitch on 3-2 which could had been called strike 3 and caught stealing for the 3rd out shook Tanaka up and he served up a meatball to Kiemier and it was over. Tanaka got almost as many bad calls last night's home plate umpire as when C.B.Buckner working home plate.
ReplyDeleteStill don't understand Ford pinch hitting for Frazier whose stats are almost the same RH or LH and he has as much poser as Ford and a while lot more speed.
This series Voit every at bat is trying to hit the 5 run home run and Judge is chasing pitches after getting bad calls on the before pitch.Gio has gone missing this series.Maybe we should sit Judge and play Frazier in RF and Gardner in LF ,Judge'stiming is way off late n fastball in the zone and fouling back off speed.
Still like Higgy over Sanchez.
Which Monty shows up tonight , one who can strike out 8 or the one who can't find the zone. He had 2 bad games this year and one was the Rays 4 runs in 2/3 of an inning.
We need to quit trying to hit the home run and play Rays baseball.They take where the pitch is and goes with it, if you do that good things happen.DJ and Frazier are the only 2 that do that.Though I would not change Stanton right now but Judge used to go to RF , CF gap and pull now it seems all he wants to do is try and pull the ball for home run.
Rays have momentum a d sometimes you can't stop a run away train.