The Yankees are one win away from a World Series championship. This is, for many of us, old hat. And most of us know that three wins doesn’t guarantee a fourth but it does feel pretty good to have taken two in Philadelphia to be up 3-1.
The Phillies decided to give their best starter (that would be Cliff Lee if you haven’t been paying attention) his normal rest so he is starting Game 5 tonight. The Yankees are now activating their plan to have their best three pitchers all go on short rest for whatever remains of the series.
I’m sure that the Yankees never expected to be in a position where they would have to use a 3-man rotation in the series but things played out that way and it’s important to stick to it now. There’s some rumbling that Chad Gaudin should be starting instead of Burnett on short rest and honestly that’s just people freaking out.
Cliff Lee is by far the best pitcher that the Phillies have. He’s been at a base level good and very often excellent. By starting Gaudin the Yankees would essentially be handing the game to Philly which is not how you operate. You never know if you’re going to win tomorrow so you have to give yourself the best chance today.
Why am I so sure that Chad Gaudin is the worst possible choice (other than deciding to stretch out Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain or Alfredo Aceves over night)? There are two pieces:
1) He hasn’t actually done much pitching over the last month.
2) He has really bad lefty/righty splits. They are painful to look at so you may want to avert your eyes before scrolling down to the table:
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2009
|
||||
| RHB | .224 | .293 | .380 | .673 |
| LHB | .296 | .408 | .415 | .823 |
|
Career
|
||||
| RHB | .249 | .318 | .409 | .728 |
| LHB | .293 | .389 | .433 | .822 |
What do those splits mean? That he might be able to get out Jayson Werth but God save us all if he’s allowed to face Utley, Howard, Ibanez and anyone else who can bat decently from the left side of the plate. Some guys just have bad platoon splits and Gaudin is one of them which is why he hasn’t stuck anywhere even though he puts up good numbers against RHB. Unless he pulled something out of his ass that we have no evidence he would be able to, playing him in a World Series game would be a horrible, horrible decision because you can’t give away games in the World Series.
Sure pitching AJ Burnett on 3-days rest is not optimal but if he comes out at 90% he still gives the Yankees a better chance. If this were game 4 and the Yankees were up 3-0 it might be acceptable to start Gaudin but probably not.
I’ve seen some concern that Burnett, Andy and CC might wind up injured from this and honestly that’s pretty silly. Other than CC the staff is only being asked to pitch on short rest once.
It’s also ridiculous when you consider that when other teams–such as the Twins–were doing this to get into the postseason they received high praise. If it’s okay to do it to get into the door why is it suddenly not okay when it means winning the whole thing?
We don’t know how it will turn out but there is no doubt in my mind that this is the right decision. The Yankees can blow it–and if there is a team that can crawl back into things for sure it’s the 2009 Phillies–but there is a lot of overthinking from the general public and some of the media going on here.
For all the ridiculous lineup and bullpen decisions we’ve seen this is something Joe Girardi is doing correctly: Putting out his best pitchers to win games that the Yankees need to win. How can you step back and argue that it’s not the right thing to do?
It’s 1,000,000% the right thing to do. Gaudin hasn’t started a game since September 28 and has tossed a grand total of one inning this postseason. He shouldn’t even be in the conversation.