Joe Girardi seems to be very good about the bullpen and that’s why things like today’s matchups insanity are so infuriating, especially when they cost the team a game they should have won. We’ve seen this before but at least the last time the Yankees were playing a game they couldn’t afford to lose if they wanted to (ostensibly) stay in the playoff race. This was the sixth game of the season.
Here’s the pitching lines from today:
IP H R ER BB K HR J. Chamberlain 6.0 4 3 1 1 5 1 B. Bruney (H, 2) 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 0 D. Marte (H, 1) 0.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 J. Veras 0.0 0 1 1 1 0 0 P. Coke (L, 0-1; BS, 1) 0.1 3 2 2 0 1 0
Joba struggled a bit, but came managed to put together a quality start. He settled down after the 4th inning, mostly, and kept the Yankees in the game. They managed to take back the lead because Gil Meche slipped a bit. Bruney came in and did his job and then it all went to Hell.
Marte’s a bit of an all or nothing guy, he either does really well or really badly. He fell behind but got the batters out, and then when Trey Hillman put in Billy Butler (a RH hitter) he was yanked. This is aggravating because while righties do hit him a bit better, he is still just fine against them.Plus, Butler has been struggling so far and there’s no reason to think he won’t continue. Butler hits very well against LHP in his sort career but give Marte the benefit of the doubt, if nothing else you have to think he can get the next guy. Moreover, you don’t pay a guy $4 million a year and sign him for three years if he’s only good for matchups.
In any case, to illustrate my point here are his platoon splits:
Split G PA AB R HR BB SO BA OBP SLG vs RHB as LH 432 1155 1000 134 33 128 268 .238 .326 .386 vs LHB as LH 447 827 712 83 10 84 240 .201 .297 .289
So while RHB do hit a bit better of him, it’s still nothing great and he’s never been used as a Lefty Specialist of any sort before looking at that. Why start now?
So Jose Veras came in to face Billy Butler and walks him in 5 pitches. Rather than keeping Veras in for the next guy, Girardi once again shows the quick hook and yanks him to put in Phil Coke who just did not have a good day.
Matchups seriously infuriate me, because they burn out you bullpen fast and they only really work effectively in certain situations. If you have Jimmy Gobble on your team, who destroys lefty batters but gets lit up against righties he is a guy you use as a specialist (and part of the reason why he did so badly last year was because he was not used in this role). If you have Damaso Marte who is an actual good (most of the time) pitcher, you can leave him in. It make take four batters rather than three to get through the inning but it typically ends up a lot better than today’s game.
On top of all that, bringing in Veras who walks too many batters to get one out right at that very moment boggles my mind. Why not bring in Edwar Ramirez who at least does not look like he is playing darts off the mound? Maybe Jonathan Albaladejo? If the freakout over one out and winning the game is that extreme why not Mariano Rivera?
Joe Girardi is, again, typically very good about his handling of the bullpen so I am optimistic that this will not be a regular occurance but maybe the fact that there are two lefties in the bullpen now are going to set him on some crazy frustrating matchups streak. If it does, you’ll probably be able to hear me yelling about it from wherever you are at the moment.
