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Tag: CC Sabathia

Podcasts • Yankees

Aug 19, 2014

Podcast: Ben Kabak

Ben Kabak of River Ave. Blues joins me to talk about the Yankees’ chances of making the postseason and the bullpen decisions Joe Girardi has made while fighting for a playoff spot.

David Robertson

Forty games to go. The Yankees begin their homestand on Tuesday night 7 1/2 games back in the division and 3 games back for the second wild card. It’s likely going to take somewhere between 25 and 27 wins for the Yankees to make the playoffs (or playoff in the case) and that would mean a 25-15 (.625), 26-14 (.650) or 27-13 (.675) finish. There hasn’t been anything to make anyone believe the Yankees at 63-59 (.516) are capable of going on a miracle run over the next six weeks, but if they are going to, it starts with a five- or six-win homestand.

Ben Kabak of River Ave. Blues joined me to talk about the Yankees’ chances of making the postseason, the bullpen decisions Joe Girardi has made while fighting for a playoff spot and what the Yankees are looking at when it comes to free agents for 2015, including their general manager.

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Blogs • Yankees

Jul 22, 2014

The Joe Girardi Show: Season 5, Episode 2

Joe Girardi blew Monday night’s game for the Yankees with his bullpen management in the sixth inning and his decision making set up another episode of The Joe Girardi Show.

Shane Greene

I can’t remember the last time I was this devastated, upset, frustrated, embarrassed, angry, disappointed, sad and pissed off over a regular-season loss. Looking back, I’m laughing at myself for calling the June 24 loss to the Blue Jays the worst loss of the season because when you put it next to Monday night against the Rangers, it’s about as close as comparing the willingness to play through injury of Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira.

Monday night had it all. It was like a never-ending diner menu for every kind of negative feeling baseball can emote from a person, featuring five Yankees errors, two runs against a pitcher with a 10.05 ERA, one disastrous inning of managing and one big loss to the worst team in the entire majors. But because I can’t do anything about the physical mistakes (the errors) and can’t make the Yankees score runs against a horrible pitcher, I decided to focus on what could have been changed to prevent the Yankees from losing the game: the sixth inning.

It’s now been over three months since the last episode on April 21, but I felt after Monday night that it was necessary to fill in for Michael Kay on my version of The Joe Girardi Show.

Why did Shane Greene face Geovanny Soto?
Shane Greene threw 113 pitches on Monday. One hundred and thirteen. In his last start on July 12 he threw 106 and on July 7, in his only other start in the majors before that, he threw 88. How unusual was it for Joe Girardi (Mr. Conservative) to let a pitcher throw 113 pitches in a game? Well, the Yankees have played 98 games this year and here are each of their starting pitchers with the number of pitches they have thrown in each of their starts:

Masahiro Tanaka: 97, 101, 107, 105, 105, 108, 113, 108, 114, 88, 118, 106, 104, 110, 104, 106, 116, 85, 99.

Hiroki Kuroda: 91, 92, 97, 99, 91, 94, 108, 95, 98, 100, 94, 93, 90, 93, 107, 102, 109, 105, 103, 99.

David Phelps: 87, 70, 100, 104, 109, 92, 93, 102, 115, 94, 101, 107, 103, 98.

Vidal Nuno: 69, 72, 80, 82, 78, 81, 101, 101, 92, 92, 75, 107, 91, 89.

CC Sabathia: 99, 93, 111, 107, 106, 98, 77, 107.

Chase Whitley: 74, 71, 91, 83, 87, 82, 95, 87, 81, 74, 68.

Michael Pineda: 83, 94, 89, 37.

Ivan Nova: 88, 61, 97, 80.

Brandon McCarthy: 101, 99.

Greene’s 113 on Monday night represented the fifth time in 98 games (5.1 percent) that Girardi has left his starter in long enough to reach that number.

With the Yankees leading 2-1, Greene retired the first two hitters in the sixth and then gave up a single to Jake Smolinski on his 105th pitch of the game. At that time I expected Girardi to come out to get Greene. He didn’t. Greene walked Jim Adduci on five pitches to put two on with two outs and then I was certain Girardi would come get Greene at 110 pitches. He didn’t. Instead Larry Rothschild came out and talked to Greene briefly and turned around and went back to the dugout. Girardi stayed in the dugout and the bullpen door never opened. Three pitches later, Geovanny Soto singled to left. Tie game.

Why is Matt Thornton still being considered an “A” reliever just because he is left-handed?
The obvious answer to this question is that Matt Thornton is the left-hander in the bullpen and will face left-handed hitters. Some would say, “If you’re not going to bring Thornton into the game in that spot, then why is he on the team?” And to that I would answer, “He shouldn’t be.”

Matt Thornton is not good. Once upon a time Matt Thornton was good, but the last time he was good was in 2010. Since 2010, he has been “OK” and the last thing you want your left-handed “specialist” who will only be called on for one hitter or maybe two hitters in huge spots is to be “OK.” This year, lefties are hitting .277/.340/.277 against him and he has only struck out eight of the 55 lefties he has seen (14.5 percent). There’s a reason the Red Sox left him off their postseason roster last year and there’s a reason the White Sox traded him to the Red Sox in the first place and there’s a Red Sox didn’t care to re-sign him: he isn’t good.

But there was Matt Thornton being called on to face to face two lefties with runners on first and second and two outs in the sixth. And there was Matt Thornton giving up an RBI single to 20-year-old Rougned Odor and his 197 career plate appearances and there he was giving up another RBI single one a 1-2 pitch to Shin-Soo Choo.

Thornton left the game after failing to retire either lefty he faced and allowing both inherited runners to score to give the Rangers a 4-2 lead. Only in Major League Baseball, where Thornton is getting paid $3.5 million this year (and next year!), is it OK to not do your job in any capacity and then leave your workplace without holding yourself unaccountable for your actions. And that’s what Thornton did as he was nowhere to be found in the Stadium when the media went to ask him about his horrible performance. If Thornton worked a real-life, 9-5 job, an equivalent work day to his Monday night effort would have been showing up to the office at lunch time, eating fish that smelled up the entire place, taking a dump in the handicap stall in the bathroom and then going home for the day.

Why did Adam Warren relieve Matt Thornton instead of Shane Greene?
Who comes in to relieve Matt Thornton? Why it’s Adam Warren! You know him. He’s the supposed seventh-inning guy — the first reliever to be used in a big spot after David Robertson and Dellin Betances. The guy Girardi trusted more than Betances earlier in the year because he had been in the league longer despite having inferior ability and numbers to Betances (which is odd since Girardi didn’t trust Betances to be his setup guy earlier in the season because he’s a rookie while Warren and Shawn Kelley ruined games, but here he is trusting rookie Shane Greene to throw 113 pitches in his third career start).

So Warren, who Girardi didn’t turn to for either of the two right-handed hitters Greene was allowed to face at 105 and 110 pitches, comes in to face right-handed Elvis Andrus in an inning where the game has already changed and the Yankees have already given up the lead.

This entire inning was part of a much bigger problem, which is set innings for relievers because in real life (which is where games should be managed), the game needed to be saved in the sixth inning. Worry about the seventh and eighth innings (where the bases will be empty) when you get there and worry about how you will protect the lead in the ninth when you get there. Girardi went against his own formula by bringing in seventh-inning guy Warren in the sixth inning after he already let the game get away by overusing his starter and calling on a “B” reliever. So now, the same way Betances was likely unavailable on Monday night because of his 1 1/3 innings on Sunday, Warren is now likely unavailable for the following game after being wasted to hold a deficit rather than protect a lead or keep the game tied, which are both things he could have and should have been asked to do on Monday.

I always hope that my latest version of The Joe Girardi Show is the last one I will ever have to do because it would mean he wouldn’t have given me a reason to write another one. Unfortunately, I know that won’t be the case.

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Blogs • Yankees

Jul 9, 2014

The State of Brian Cashman

Brian Cashman gave his most recent State of the Yankees to Mike Francesa, so it’s time to look at the State of Brian Cashman with the “first half” of the season almost over.

Brian Cashman

We are almost at the “halfway point” of the season. But when the “first half” of the MLB season ends, the Yankees will only have 68 games or 42 percent of their season left. Time is ticking for the Yankees to start playing like the Yankees or at least start playing the way they were two weeks ago. Luckily, the AL East has become what the AL Central and NL West were for so long and even at 45-44, the Yankees are a strong finish in Cleveland and Baltimore this weekend from possibly being in first place.

Brian Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN and gave a sort of First Half State of the Yankees, so of course it’s time to give a State of Brian Cashman for the first time since Feb. 20. Back in February, Cashman crushed my confidence about the 2014 Yankees a full 40 days before the season started, but rightfully so apparently since they are one game over .500 after 89 games. However, it’s a little odd that the person responsible for building this team and this roster is the person who entered the season admitting that they weren’t going to be that good, and his feelings haven’t really changed.

On the big picture for the 2014 Yankees.

“Frustrating so far. We’ve had underperformance; we’ve had injuries, inconsistency. It’s been a frustrating first part and it’s obviously my job to find ways to improve on what we’ve got and to make some adjustments and we feel we have to do that. I feel I have to do that.”

I’m glad that Brian Cashman feels he has to make some adjustments to the one-game-over-.500 team he built coming off an win and postseason-less season. That’s very nice of him. What’s also nice is using the word “frustrating” to describe the 2014 Yankees. I would have gone a different route in my choice of word, but “frustrating” is a very nice way to put. It’s kind of like when the Yankees get seven hits in a game, all singles of course, and Joe Girardi claims they swung the bats “well.” So yes, the 2014 Yankees have been “frustrating.” How frustrating? Let’s look at the Yankees’ season by month.

April: 15-11
May: 14-14
June: 12-15
July: 4-4

The Yankees are one game over .500 right now. When they were six games over .500 at 39-33 two weeks ago, Suzyn Waldman was telling John Sterling how Joe Torre used to like to say you need to move above .500 in increments of five and how the Yankees’ next stop was 10 games over .500. Since then, the Yankees have gone 6-12, so about that 10 games over .500 …

On why he chose to designate Alfonso Soriano for assignment.

He struggled poorly against left handed and right handed pitching. We got him because we were struggling so badly last year against left-handed pitchers and that’s something he’s always been good at .. this year the defense hasn’t been there clearly, the offense against righties and lefties hasn’t been there and this is a bad defensive club already … We’re at the halfway point. I can’t keep waiting. I have to all of a sudden make some changes if we feel there might be some better options and so the play kind of played the way off the club I guess.”

We’re not at the halfway point. We’re at the “halfway point.” The halfway point was last week when the Yankees were busy losing 4-3 in 12 innings at home to the Rays, which was the third loss in a five-game HOME losing streak. Two nights before that during Game 79 of the season, Cashman was (to steal a line from Tim Wattley in The Campaign) “playing hee-haw with the eff-around gang” in a private booth, canoodling with Kenny Chesney while his half-billion offseason dollars went a combined 2-for-12 with four strikeouts and made one terrible pitch to Mike Napoli. (That was the most I will ever get on Masahiro Tanaka and I felt bad even typing that sentence, but it went with the whole half-billion dollars thing, so I had to bring Tanaka into it. Sorry, Masahiro. Please don’t let your MRI come back with bad news.)

I said everything I had to say about Alfonso Soriano on Wednesday and Cashman only helped my argument by saying that Soriano believed he needed to be a full-time player to get on track, which he clearly did need. And Soriano was supposed to be an everyday player on Opening Day when he was going to be the full-time DH for the 2014 Yankees before Mr. The Knees Beltran needed to become a DH and Soriano became an outfield platoon with Ichiro.

On CC Sabathia.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

CC Sabathia needs to see Dr. James Andrews, but according to Cashman, Andrews is at a convention in Seattle with every other big-time surgeon where I imagine they are all getting absolutely hammered and watching the ticker on ESPN hoping to see news about athletes that were injured and will need to undergo season-ending surgery. “Bronson Arroyo needs Tommy John! Next round’s on Jim!”

There are rumors that Sabathia might never pitch again because of the possibility of microfracture surgery, but until then, I can only hope that Sabathia does come back this year to bolster the back of the rotation. (That’s right, I said back of the rotation for the $700,000-per-start “ace.” No big deal.)

On the trade between the A’s and Cubs.

“We had a lot of conversations clearly with the Cubs about Samardzija as well as Hammel as well as both at the same time and I think that the Cubs liked a lot of the pieces that we had. I think we were certainly in the arena. The fact that Theo was engaging me as much as he was, I know he likes our players. I know that there were packages that had interest to him for one or both combined that could have worked.”

I had to really hold back the tears when I heard this because what Cashman basically said was,” Hey Yankees fans, I was right there to completely fix the rotation, get us two frontend starters and make us the favorite in the division, but I didn’t! But I was close! I was really close!”

I’m not sure what the Yankees would have had to give up to get the duo, considering what the A’s gave up to get them, but if the Yankees had gotten both of them, this would have been their rotation:

Masahiro Tanaka
Jeff Samardzija
Jason Hammel
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy

Instead it’s:

Masahiro Tanaka
Hiroki Kuroda
Brandon McCarthy
David Phelps
Shane Greene

I’m guessing if Cashman was looking to get both then that’s not good news for hoping that Michael Pineda will be back soon or in 2014, but now with the starting pitching market as thin as it is and the Top 2 starting pitchers on the market both gone, Pineda has to come back in August and be as good as he was in April.

I would have rather had Cashman tell Francesa he didn’t even know Samardzija and Hammel were available or that Theo Epstein recently got a new cell number and he only had his old number. But hearing him say the Yankees “were in the arena” makes me feel the way I did when Cliff Lee was about to become a Yankee before the Phillies ruined everything. (Cue the Cliff Lee Sad Songs Playlist.) I’m just going to pretend that Theo was stringing him along with his buddy Jed Hoyer and they were sitting in a room talking to Cashman on speaker phone all seven times, pressing the “mute” button anytime Cashman was talking and screaming with laughter like Larry David and Jeff Garlin looking at the “Freak Book” at Ted Danson’s birthday party making Cashman think he really had a chance to land either or both of the starters.

On Carlos Beltran.

“I think Beltran looks like he’s starting to come through it a little bit on the elbow. I think his swings definitely look healthier, but obviously we have to deal with the knees too that he’s had now for a number of years … We have to deal with protecting Carlos.”

I love that Cashman says Beltran has been dealing with “the knees” (not one knee, but both) for a number of years now. There’s nothing like signing a 37-year-old outfielder to a three-year deal (he currently can’t actually play in the outfield) when you know he’s been dealing with “the knees” for a number of years and then needing to “protect him” in the first one-sixth of his deal.

Beltran is hitting .216/.271/.401 and the whole idea of getting Beltran was because of his postseason success (51 games, 16 home runs, 40 RBIs, .333/.445/.683), but you have to get to the postseason to get Postseason Beltran. So far his regular season has been more Postseason Nick Swisher and his health and ability to play through injury has been Regular-Season Mark Teixeira. So far the Yankees have been like Beltran: an underachieving disappointment.

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Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 3, 2014

The A’s Have a Team Built for the Bronx

The A’s have been rolling along all season with the combination of starting pitching and power hitting the Yankees have always had and will need to contend this season.

Detroit Tigers v Oakland Athletics

After the Yankees finished their nine-game road trip with four wins in their final five games, it looked like they might finally be ready to go on a run as the calendar turned to June with a seven-game homestand. But after losing two of three to the Twins and then their makeup game against the Mariners, that run never happened. And things don’t get easier with the A’s, the best all-around team in the American League coming to the Bronx for three games.

With the Yankees and A’s meeting at the Stadium this week, Alex Hall of Athletics Nation joined me to talk about how the A’s keep producing front-end starting pitchers, if A’s fans are tired of just making the playoffs and what it’s been like over the years to see star players forced to leave due to finances.

Keefe: Right now the Yankees’ rotation is Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Vidal Nuno, David Phelps and Chase Whitley. That’s the New York Yankees. With Ivan Nova lost for the season, Michael Pineda suspended and then injured and CC Sabathia on the disabled list, the Yankees are trotting out a rotation that has me longing for the days of the 2008 when Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson were 40 percent of the rotation after Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were injured. Or the days of 2007 when Brian Cashman opened the season relying on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in the rotation. On the days that Tanaka doesn’t pitch, I have treated any Yankees win like a division-clinching win in September.

Why am I venting about my team’s rotation problems to you, an A’s fan, who is enjoying first place in the AL West? Because it seems like whenever the A’s have a pitching problem they just call up someone who suddenly becomes ace-worthy as if pitching injuries don’t even matter to the organization. What’s it like knowing that if someone in the rotation goes down, there is someone else ready to seamlessly fill in? Let me know so I can live vicariously through A’s fans.

Hall: It is a very liberating feeling, I must say! Billy Beane and his staff seem to press all the right buttons when it comes to pitching, both by turning unknown or undervalued players into stars and by knowing when to quickly pull the plug on experiments that aren’t working out. They also put themselves into a position to succeed by stocking extra depth — you never know when injuries will happen, but you can prepare yourself with a backup plan for when they do.

That depth came in handy this year when Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin both went down in spring training. The A’s had Tommy Milone waiting in reserve, and Jesse Chavez fighting for a spot, and the two of them have been fantastic. When Dan Straily faltered, Drew Pomeranz stepped in; while his low ERA is unsustainable, he at least looks like a league-average starter and he still has upside as he re-adjusts to starting once again. The only thing that worries me with this rotation is its durability — outside of Milone, no one is a good bet to throw 200 innings without wearing down.

Keefe: Because the A’s are the A’s and play in an odd stadium in an odd location and don’t have much money and can’t retain free agents, it’s astonishing to me when they have the type of success they are having now or had last year or the year before, the way it was at the beginning of the 2000s. But I’m guessing for A’s fan the success isn’t so surprising and would like to be met with postseason success.

Here in New York, I grew up in the 90s in the height of the Yankees’ dynasty and since I was nine years old all I have known is October baseball and winning. Yes, I have been spoiled and have seen enough success over the last 18 years to last a lifetime, but now it’s expected every year and when it doesn’t happen it’s disappointing.

When it comes to the A’s, what are the year-end expectations, especially after the team’s resurgence the last few years? Is just making the postseason enough for you, or are you tired of “just” making the postseason?

Hall: In 2012, it was cool just to make the playoffs. The team hadn’t been good for awhile and wasn’t supposed to compete entering the season, so it was exciting to be alive in October. In 2013, repeating the postseason berth and proving it wasn’t a fluke was still satisfying, but it stung a little more when the team was eliminated in uncannily similar fashion to the previous year. This time around, nothing short of a trip to the World Series will feel like a successful season to me, and I think a lot of A’s fans would echo that sentiment. This team is built to win right now and has actually mortgaged a little bit of its future to do so, and a failure to bring home a title, much less a league pennant, would be severely disappointing.

Keefe: I really have no idea how the A’s have been able to put together the run they have over the last few years even with great starting pitching. When I look at the roster and I see former Red Sox like Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and Jed Lowrie playing important roles for not only a first-place team, but maybe the best team in all of baseball, it hurts my head to think about. How do the A’s win with a questionable lineup on paper aside from really only Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Donaldson? And can you please forward your answer to Brian Cashman. One second and I will get you his email address.

Rather than sink too many resources into a couple of star players, the A’s prefer to find a good, solid player for every position so that there are no weaknesses in the lineup. In addition, manager Bob Melvin is a master at putting his players in the best possible positions to succeed, most notably with his aggressive use of platoons. In that way, the whole can come out greater than the sum of the parts — each player fits into the greater scheme of things and complements his teammates well.

Hall: Of course, it helps to have Josh Donaldson in your lineup. Donaldson has been the hands-down MVP of the American League so far — he leads the league in both versions of WAR, he’s a top-five hitter, and he might be the best defender in the AL at any position. The rest of the lineup has a ton of power, gets on base more than any team in baseball (read: makes outs at a lower rate), and gets into bullpens quickly by running up opponents’ pitch counts with patient at-bats. There aren’t a lot of big-name hitters, but the Big Green Machine leads MLB in scoring.

Keefe: This offseason when Robinson Cano left via free agency for Seattle and $240 million it was the first time I watched the Yankees get outbid by another team and lose a star player to the system they helped create and then dominate. I didn’t like the idea of lowballing Cano and then using the additional money he could have been offered on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran since the Yankees didn’t need Ellsbury and Beltran seemed like a luxury and throw-in by the front office to give the fans a “new toy” for the season before the Masahiro Tanaka signing happened.

You have had to deal with superstars on the A’s leaving through free agency for more money over the years and have had to watch impending free agents get traded off before they hit the market for prospects and lesser names to stay under budget. Has it been frustrating to watch the team continually build for the future and be forced to lose star players, or was it all worth it now that the A’s are back to competing for a championship each year?

Hall: On the contrary, it’s kind of exciting. Every year is different, and you never know what to expect other than the fact that Billy Beane will be trying his hardest to win. He never punts a season, evidenced by the fact that he’s never had a team lose 90 games, which means that any year could be the year that everything clicks and the club rises back to contention. In this case, that year was 2012, and we’re still riding the wave. Of course, the flip side of that is that everything can come crashing down in an instant. A couple of key injuries, a bit of regression, and suddenly the team is on the outside looking in. I do sometimes envy big-market teams who can afford to keep fan favorites around for 10 or 15 years and truly have them as their own, but being an A’s fan feels like being on the cutting edge of baseball history. Where Oakland goes, the sport tends to follow.

Keefe: Before the season, I’m sure you expected the A’s to compete for the West again and return to the postseason after the last two seasons, and why wouldn’t you? But what were your preseason expectations? And after watching the team now for two months, have your preseason expectations changed now that you have seen what the team is capable of?

Hall: Certainly, I expected the A’s to win the West again. However, I was expecting another tough battle with Texas and the Angels, and that expectation hasn’t changed. The A’s have gone nuts so far and built themselves a nice cushion, but fortunes can change quickly and you can never take anything for granted in this sport. The Rangers have watched half their team get injured, and the Angels have watched some key stars begin their declines earlier than expected. But Texas isn’t out of it and the Angels have fully bounced back from last year’s disaster. The A’s are the hot team right now, but this race isn’t over.

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Blogs • Yankees

May 14, 2014

Subway Series 2014 Diary: Yankee Stadium

The Yankees lost the first two games of the 2014 Subway Series and have now lost six straight to the Mets, so let’s look at what went wrong in the Bronx.

Vidal Nuno

The Rangers overcame a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Penguins and advance to the Eastern Conference finals and the Yankees lost two games in a row at home to the Mets and have now lost six in a row to the Mets going back to last year. Is it 2014? Is this real life?

Two years ago I did a Subway Series Diary for the Yankee Stadium portion of the rivalry to recap what I watched over the three-game series and I said:

I feel weird calling this a diary since I have never had a diary before. I remember in elementary school when we were forced to have a “journal” in one of those black-and-white Mead notebooks.

Well, here we go again.

MONDAY
With the Mets losing eight of their last nine and looking ripe for their annual free fall, I didn’t think there was a chance the 2014 Subway Series could go the way the 2013 Subway Series went. But when Monday started off with Mark Teixeira not being in the lineup due to “fatigue” and “tired legs” and the $23.5 million-per-year and $138,888-per game first baseman said, “I was on the bases a lot this week. Just a little tired. I’ll be fine,” doubt started to creep in. When the Mets took a 1-0 first inning lead and held that lead into the second and the Yankees loaded the bases with no one out only for Kelly Johnson and Brian Roberts to fail to drive a run in, the doubt grew larger. Then Brett Gardner saved Johnson and Roberts by hitting a grand slam to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead and I was relieved that order had been restored in the Subway Series. I thought “The Mets are the Mets” and started to think about winning three of four in the series, if not sweeping the series. And then the seventh inning started.

Alfredo Aceves’ second tour with the Yankees is going about as well as Javier Vazquez’s second tour with the Yankees went. Sure, Alfredo Aceves 2.0 is averaging 9.3 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9, but he’s ruined the last two games he pitched in (he blew Saturday’s game in Milwaukee and Monday’s game) and he’s only pitched in four games (he did pitch 5 1/3 scoreless innings against Tampa Bay on May 4 and maybe that’s the sign the Yankees need to put him in the rotation). But Aceves wasn’t the only wrong button that Joe Girardi pushed with a 7-5 lead and nine outs to go in the game. Here are the lines for the bullpen:

Alfredo Aceves: 0.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Matt Thornton: 0.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Preston Claiborne: 1.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3K

Everyone loves to praise Girardi for how he uses his relievers and how he manages their workloads (he did a great job giving Mariano Rivera extended rest in his final season last year, so he could throw pitches to WFAN’s Craig Carton this week at Yankee Stadium), but Girardi’s biggest bullpen problem this season hasn’t necessarily been managing workloads as much as it has been determining who should pitch when. It’s not completely his fault since the entire league has dictated the idea of set bullpen roles, so that someone like David Robertson can no longer be the escape artist he once was when it comes to escaping jams for others. Because Robertson is the closer, he can now only escape his own jams. And that’s why Robertson was standing in the bullpen on Monday night ready to enter the game, but because it wasn’t the ninth inning and because the Yankees weren’t winning or the game wasn’t tied, he stayed in the bullpen watching the 2014 version of The Goof Troop light the game on fire like my great grandmother burning her trash in the backyard as if it were no big deal. If there are going to be set bullpen roles (and there are), then David Robertson pitches the ninth, Dellin Betances pitches the eighth and Girardi can mix and match the other innings and outs with his binder. That is the only acceptable pecking order after six weeks.

Even after watching the bullpen punch out early and after giving up nine runs, the Yankees had a chance to tie the game in the ninth with Derek Jeter on first with one out for pinch hitter … Mark Teixeira!

“All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight — with two bad legs.”

That’s how Vin Scully started his famous call of Kirk Gibson’s 1988 World Series home run and I thought Michael Kay might start to rattle something similar off, not because Kay likes to overdo it with drama more than any other baseball play-by-play man (which he does), but because it was nearly a miracle that hours after taking a seat on the bench due to tired legs, Mark Teixeira was hitting in the ninth.

And Teixeira got the job done with a single to right to put the tying run on base and the winning run at the plate in Brian McCann. But then McCann hit into the predictable game-ending double play and the Subway Series picked up right where it left off last May.

TUESDAY
For someone fighting for their job, Vidal Nuno basically did the equivalent of showing up to work an hour late wearing shorts and a T-shirt, streaming Netflix in your cube, taking a two-hour lunch, scrolling through Facebook pictures for the remainder of the post-lunch day and then accidentally forwarding an email containing a pornographic link to a company-wide list at 4:02 p.m. before leaving for the day. Nuno was given a golden opportunity to make a case that he could be a reliable starter in the rotation and replace Ivan Nova this year and also to throw his name in the mix for a spot in the rotation next year when Hiroki Kuroda leaves or if Nova still isn’t health. But Nuno has followed up every promising start with an A.J. Burnett-like egg and if it weren’t for CC Sabathia also landing on the disabled list, Nuno would probably be getting his seat back in the bullpen. Here is how Nuno has done over the last three weeks since joining the rotation:

April 20 at TB: 5 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

April 26 vs. LAA: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

May 2 vs. TB: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 2 K

May 7 at LAA: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

May 13 vs. NYM: 3.1 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 1 K

Sean Henn would have been proud of Nuno’s performance on Tuesday night, letting the Mets hang a 4-spot before the Yankees could even bat for the first time and then continuing to let the Mets add on to their lead with the offense trying to erase the deficit. The problem isn’t just Nuno, it’s that the Yankees needed two starters to replace Nova and Michael Pineda and Nuno and David Phelps have proven to be coin flips in their short stints in the rotation. And now the problem is even bigger with Yankees asking Chase Whitley to take CC Sabathia’s spot in the rotation on Thursday. The last time someone named Chase started a game for the Yankees, I was sitting at Fenway Park wondering if I wanted to watch baseball ever again.

After watching Aceves blow Saturday’s game and then Monday’s game, there he was again on Tuesday being called upon to stop the bleeding and give the offense a chance to get back in the game and there he was again ruining a game. Aceves gave up four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings before handing off the ball to Matt Daley, who actually did his job this time after taking part in the April 19 disaster in Tampa Bay.

Standing between a four-game losing streak and a seven-game Subway Series losing streak is Masahiro Tanaka and I’m happy he’s standing there. Right now, Tanaka’s not only the one Yankees’ starter who can be trusted, he’s the only Yankees’ starter who can win.

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