Two random thoughts after yesterday's 8-6 win
1. There's an old baseball tradition, wherein a team which is winning a game in what could be construed as a blow out, should not "run-up" the score.
According to this tradition, if a team is winning by 8+ runs (maybe even by 6 or 7 runs), its expected not to hustle full throttle to manufacture extra runs that may "show-up" the other team (things like stealing bases in blow-outs are frowned upon).
Well, I haven't done a study on this, but I have the distinct impression that baseball has gotten more chaotic of late (and by late I mean the last few seasons), and every so often you hear about a team coming back from a big deficit and winning a game that seemed lost. Clearly, MLB baseball is not operating in a 1968 mode, so a big inning is always lurking there somewhere.
While I suspect that the number of awesome comebacks in a season is still fairly small (probably not even 5%), seeing comebacks like yesterday's (with that amazing 6 run 9th, all with 2 outs), leads me to think that it's time to discard that old baseball tradition of not running-up the score.
2. It's become well established among Yankee fans that Joe Torre rides relief pitchers hard (see Quantrill, Paul or Villone, Ron).
Since relief pitchers are seen as somewhat fungible commodities (unless you are Mariano Rivera), riding relievers hard is not exactly a tragedy for the Yankees, provided that the Yankees have enough pitchers in line to take up Torre's high work load (this year would seem to be one of those years in which the Yankees have the relief arms and the need to use them).
What I don't understand is Joe Torre's philosophy when using Jorge Posada.
Watching Wednesday's game (April 18th, Yanks over Cleveland 9-2), I noticed that Joe replaced Alex RodrÃguez with Miguel Cairo, Josh Phelps with Doug Mientkiewicz and Johnny Damon with Kevin Thompson (the first two in the top of the 8th, the latter in the waning part of the bottom of the 7th, when the Yanks were already up 9-2).
Why didn't Torre replace Jorge Posada for the top of the 9th inning?
The Yanks were up by 7 runs, and Torre had already bit the bullet on taking out some of his regular players, so it's not like he was studiously trying to avoid a comeback like yesterday's.
While I believe that teams should not assume that they're going to win blowouts (see point 1 above), if you're already putting in defensive replacements, shouldn't you at least spare Jorge an inning of going into his squat?
An inning in a 162 game season is not that much, but an inning here and there could well end adding up by the end of the year......
According to this tradition, if a team is winning by 8+ runs (maybe even by 6 or 7 runs), its expected not to hustle full throttle to manufacture extra runs that may "show-up" the other team (things like stealing bases in blow-outs are frowned upon).
Well, I haven't done a study on this, but I have the distinct impression that baseball has gotten more chaotic of late (and by late I mean the last few seasons), and every so often you hear about a team coming back from a big deficit and winning a game that seemed lost. Clearly, MLB baseball is not operating in a 1968 mode, so a big inning is always lurking there somewhere.
While I suspect that the number of awesome comebacks in a season is still fairly small (probably not even 5%), seeing comebacks like yesterday's (with that amazing 6 run 9th, all with 2 outs), leads me to think that it's time to discard that old baseball tradition of not running-up the score.
2. It's become well established among Yankee fans that Joe Torre rides relief pitchers hard (see Quantrill, Paul or Villone, Ron).
Since relief pitchers are seen as somewhat fungible commodities (unless you are Mariano Rivera), riding relievers hard is not exactly a tragedy for the Yankees, provided that the Yankees have enough pitchers in line to take up Torre's high work load (this year would seem to be one of those years in which the Yankees have the relief arms and the need to use them).
What I don't understand is Joe Torre's philosophy when using Jorge Posada.
Watching Wednesday's game (April 18th, Yanks over Cleveland 9-2), I noticed that Joe replaced Alex RodrÃguez with Miguel Cairo, Josh Phelps with Doug Mientkiewicz and Johnny Damon with Kevin Thompson (the first two in the top of the 8th, the latter in the waning part of the bottom of the 7th, when the Yanks were already up 9-2).
Why didn't Torre replace Jorge Posada for the top of the 9th inning?
The Yanks were up by 7 runs, and Torre had already bit the bullet on taking out some of his regular players, so it's not like he was studiously trying to avoid a comeback like yesterday's.
While I believe that teams should not assume that they're going to win blowouts (see point 1 above), if you're already putting in defensive replacements, shouldn't you at least spare Jorge an inning of going into his squat?
An inning in a 162 game season is not that much, but an inning here and there could well end adding up by the end of the year......
posted by jrvj at 5:48 AM
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