Joe Girardi – Page 3 – Keefe To The City

Jul 27, 2015

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Pre-2013

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

When things are going well for the Yankees, I tend to look at the standings a lot. From when I was eight years old during the 1995 season through when I was 25 years old during the 2012 season, I looked at the standings A LOT (with the exception of 2008). During 2013 and 2014, I tried my best to avoid the standings each day, especially in August and September after each season-crushing loss.

But ever since the Yankees went to Fenway Park for the last three games of the first half, I have spent an exorbitant amount of time looking at studying the standings as if it were pre-2013 once again. And after the Yankees’ sixth straight series win on Sunday to improve to 14-5 in July, here is how the AL East standings look:

A 6 1/2-game lead in the division with the Orioles being the closest in the loss column at seven back has the Yankees sitting incredibly well for the final 67 of the season. Let’s say the Yankees went 34-33 in the final 67 games, playing .507 baseball for the rest of the season. They would finish 89-73. Here is what the rest of the AL East would have to do just to tie them.

Toronto, 39-23 (.629)
Baltimore, 41-24 (.631)
Tampa Bay, 40-22 (.645)
Boston, 45-18 (.714)

But the Yankees aren’t going to play just .507 baseball the rest of the way and those four teams, none of which are above .500, aren’t going to play as well as those numbers say they need to, which would have only tied them with the Yankees choking away the season. The Yankees are on their way to where they haven’t been in three years and it’s all because everything that went wrong in 2013 and 2014 is going right in 2015.

After two years of everything and I mean everything going wrong for the Yankees, everything is going right for them in 2015. Well, maybe not everything since Stephen Drew is still playing second base and Brendan Ryan is still on the team, but even those two examples prove how fortunate the Yankees have been this season. If it were 2013 or 2014, not only would Drew be starting, but so would Ryan, in the same infield every day and likely hitting in the middle of the order the way that Ichiro, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells were asked to nearly every day in 2013. Instead, the Yankees have managed to have the second-best record in the AL as of today with their everyday second baseman hitting .188.

The team was able to overcome an embarrassing 3-6 start to the season and a frustrating 1-10 stretch in May, which is when the 2013 and 2014 Yankees fell apart and never recovered. They have won games started by Jacob deGrom, David Price, Max Scherzer, Chris Archer, Scott Kazmir and two games started by Felix Hernandez. They have kept on winning even with Joe Girardi constantly giving unnecessary days off to his best players like how he sat Brett Gardner against a lefty on Saturday or how he sat A-Rod on Sunday after he hit three home runs on Saturday (fortunately the Yankees won both games). And they have overcome having two reliable starting pitchers (both of which are frequently given extra rest between starts), having two starters (CC Sabathia and Nathan Eovaldi) who are coin flips every five days and having their most consistent first-half starter put in the bullpen because of money (Sabathia) and “stuff” (Eovaldi) instead of results. The Yankees have overcome injuries, underachieving, questionable signings and irresponsible roster and lineup decisions to get to where they are.

To think that the Yankees could be where they are right now with arguably their best three players in the rotation, field and bullpen in Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury and Andrew Miller not having all been healthy at the same time from April 24 to July 7 isn’t remarkable or impressive, it’s flat-out ridiculous. And they are where they are even with those three extended absences because Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira have turned back the clock to 2009-2011 when it was Teixeira who would hit third and A-Rod who would hit fourth as the most feared 3-4 combination in the majors; and because Brett Gardner went on the hottest of his patented hot streaks imaginable; and because Dellin Betances, Chasen Shreve and Justin Wilson got everyone out. The performances of A-Rod and Teixeira and Gardner and the bullpen overshadowed Chase Headley’s abyssmal first full season with the Yankees, Didi Gregorius’ New York growing pains, Carlos Beltran’s inability to produce and stay healthy and the constant struggle for Sabathia and Eovaldi to pitch six innings.

Now there are 10 weeks left in the season and the Yankees are as healthy as they can be without any regular position player, starter or reliever on the DL (knock on all of the wood around you) and they are another stretch like they have had the last two weeks from running away and hiding with the AL East.

Some Yankees fans just wanted a return to the postseason in any form in 2015 and that meant accepting a spot in the wild-card game. Me? I wanted the Yankees to win the AL East when the season began the same way I do every season. I wanted to know that the Yankees would be playing past Game 162 and Opening Day wouldn’t be the only day with bunting draped over the second and upper decks at the Stadium. I wanted everything to be the way it used to be and now it looks like it will be.

It feels good to have the Yankees back where they’re supposed to be. It feels good to have the baseball world right again.

Podcasts • Yankees

Jul 21, 2015

Podcast: Bald Vinny

After winning three straight series to finish the first half with a 6-3 record in the “Necessary Nine“, the Yankees picked up right where they left off to start the second half with another series

After winning three straight series to finish the first half with a 6-3 record in the “Necessary Nine“, the Yankees picked up right where they left off to start the second half with another series win. The Yankees have increased their first-place lead in the AL East and now host their strongest competition for the division title with the Orioles coming to Bronx.

Bald Vinny of the Right Field Bleacher Creatures and Bald Vinny’s House of Tees joined me to talk about talk about the confidence of Yankees fans with the team in first place, the situation at second base, the good and bad of the first half and the state of Bald Vinny’s House of Tees.

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 13, 2015

Yankees-Red Sox Weekend Diary

The Yankees went to Boston for the weekend with a chance to end the Red Sox’ season and they called up their second baseman of the future along the way.

In August 2006, the Yankees ended the Red Sox’ season with five-game sweep at Fenway. This past weekend, the Yankees had a chance to end the Red Sox’ season in Boston once again.

The Yankees needed to win one game this weekend in Boston. Just one. Anything more would be a bonus and anything left a disaster, but one win would mean three more games off the schedule with the Red Sox only picking up one game in the standings and a missed opportunity to truly get back into the AL East race.

I decided to go to the diary format that I have used for so many Yankees-Red Sox series before. Just pretend like you’re reading this in one of those black-and-white Mead composition notebooks.

FRIDAY
A few weeks ago, a rumor surfaced that the Yankees were interested in Clay Buchholz, who I wanted no part of, even if he might be a better rotation option than CC Sabathia. (The Yankees already have two better options than CC Sabathia: one (Adam Warren) they put in the bullpen and the other (Luis Severino) is wasting bullets in the minors). I didn’t care that the Red Sox’ version of Phil Hughes had pitched to a 1.99 ERA over his last 10 starts entering Friday because I know the real Clay Buchholz and I have seen his inconsistencies since 2007 and I have seen his fragile makeup. And that fragile makeup forced him to leave the game in the fourth inning and now he’s on the DL with a strained flexor muscle, which pretty much ends any trade rumors surrounding him. During the game, I thought Buchholz decided to pull himself after giving up a double to the left-center gap to Didi Gregorius and then nearly a three-run home run to Stephen Drew, but maybe this strained flexor muscle is real.

A-Rod has always owned Buchholz, but then again, the Yankees have always owned Buchholz. Before Friday, Buchholz had a 3.85 career ERA with 50 losses. He had a 6.38 career ERA against the Yankees and they were responsible for 16 percent (eight) of those 50 losses. So it made sense when A-Rod hit a solo bomb over the Green Monster on a 2-1 pitch in the first inning to set the tone for the game and the weekend.

When Buchholz left the game, Robbie Ross Jr. nearly got out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth before All-Star Brock Holt bobbled a routine grounder that was followed by an infield single and a walk with three more runs in. (With the last-place Red Sox trailing 4-0 in the fourth inning of a must-win game and must-sweep series, a “Yankees suck” chant broke out at Fenway.) And with Michael Pineda on the mound and Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller waiting in the bullpen, that was the game.

Pineda had a start skipped at the beginning of June and he returned to get rocked by Baltimore (4.1 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR). With four days rest, he beat Miami in his start (6.2 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 1 HR), but then got rocked by Philadelphia on four days rest in his next start (3.1 IP, 11 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HR). Since then he has had five days rest for his three starts against Houston, Tampa Bay and Boston and this is his line: 21.2 IP, 19 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 24 K, 1 HR, 1.25 ERA, 0.938 WHIP.

Pineda will pitch on Saturday against Seattle, giving him seven days rest, and with the Yankees having an off day on the Monday after the All-Star break, his next start after that will likely be that Friday in Minnesota on five days rest. There’s definitely reason to believe he’s going to be shaky against Seattle and dominate Minnesota since he appears to need to stick to his routine and extended time off works against him. Let’s just hope Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi have come to the conclusion that they know absolutely nothing about starting pitching and innings limited and preventing injuries and let Pineda pitch as much as possible in the second half.

The most important thing on Friday was getting the one win needed over the weekend and then there was the news that Rob Refsndyer would be called up for Saturday.

SATURDAY
I have been calling for Rob Refsnyder to be in the majors since last season when he was dominating Triple-A and the Yankees were scoring one or two runs a night. But Brian Cashman kept telling everyone that his defense wasn’t ready, even as Gregorius, Drew and Chase Headley kept booting balls and throwing them away, while failing to his too. But after more than half of the season, I guess the Yankees realized that the Yankees of all teams shouldn’t be starting the hitter with the worst batting average in the majors and decided to finally join the rest of the baseball world, which has been implementing youth on their rosters throughout the season.

After the Yankees won on Friday and accomplished their mission of winning once in this series to keep the Red Sox at bay, I was pretty calm about Saturday’s game. I figured the Yankees would get shut down by Eduardo Rodriguez with him being a young left-hander they have never faced and that happened for the most part with the Yankees scoring just two runs against him in 6 1/3 innings.

I knew it was going to be hard to sweep the Red Sox again at Fenway and with the Yankees’ winning streak against them sitting at five straight after Friday’s win, I wasn’t surprised or upset with the 5-3 loss. All it did was put the standings back to where they were the day before with another game off the schedule and the Red Sox running in place.

It’s hard to know what to expect from Ivan Nova since he had made only four starts now since returning from Tommy John surgery and despite pitching to a 3.42 ERA in those four starts, the Yankees are just 1-3 in them. I do like that Nova holds himself and not his repaired arm accountable for the losses saying that you can’t blame losses on Tommy John surgery and not relate wins to it either. His strikeouts are down and right now with 4.6 K/9, he’s pitching to his lowest strikeout totals of his career, but if anything can be attributed to his recent return from surgery, I think it should be that and him getting the feel back for his pitches and being on a Major League mound. I still trust Nova more than 2015 CC Sabathia or any version of Nathan Eovaldi, and if we’re talking postseason rotations on July 13, then Nova gets the ball in Game 3.

SUNDAY
The Yankees led 2-0 early then trailed 3-2 thanks to an “Eovaldi” (which is the inevitable inning for every Nathan Eovaldi start in which he allows a crooked number), but they battled back to tie the game at 3 in the fifth and then took the lead for good with three runs in the sixth to officially end the Red Sox’ season.

Rob Refsnyder got his first hit in his sixth at-bat in the majors and followed up that seventh-inning single with a two-run home run in the ninth inning, which proved to be the difference after some sloppy defense in the bottom of the ninth and guaranteed his place in the lineup after the break. I’m not sure if Stephen Drew has realized yet that his starting job is long gone or if he’s still going to go on and on about being unlucky for two years now, but I’m sure Gregorio Petit realized his roster spot is gone for good after the hit and home run and a copy of the Amtrak and Bolt Bus schedule being left in his locker after the game.

The win gave the Yankees their third straight series win and gave them the 6-3 record they needed in the “Necessary Nine” to end the first half. Here are the AL East standings after the first half.

Let’s say the Yankees play .500 baseball over their final 74 games and go 37-37. They would finish the season at 85-77. Here is what the rest of the division would have to do if that happened:

Tampa Bay: 39-32 (.549, +.044)
Baltimore: 41-33 (.554, +.054)
Toronto: 40-31 (.563, +.068)
Boston: 43-30 (.589, +.117)

So not only would the Yankees have to play awful .500 baseball and 45 points below their season winning percentage, but every other team would have to play well above their first-half performances as well.

It’s absolutely incredible that the Yankees are in first place and have a four-game lead in the loss column after 88 games despite having the worst hitter (Stephen Drew) in the league playing every day, letting a young shortstop (Didi Gregorius) get his feet wet and waiting for him to turn it around in the Bronx both offensively and defensively, letting two horrible starts (CC Sabathia and Nathan Eovaldi) make up 40 percent of the rotation, putting their most consistent starter (Adam Warren) in the bullpen with no set role, watching yet another bad contract (Chase Headley) develop, dealing with a $45 million outfielder (Carlos Beltran) who aged 15 years in one offseason between 2013 and 2014 and missing arguably their three best players (Masahiro Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury and Andrew Miller) at the same time for most of the first half. If A-Rod and Mark Teixeira didn’t turn back the clock and if Brian McCann didn’t start to earn his contract and if Brett Gardner didn’t suddenly find consistency for the first time in his career, this Yankees team would be on the same path as the last two.

About as much as can you ask to go your way in a Major League Baseball season has gone the Yankees’ way. It just needs to continue for 74 more games.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jul 10, 2015

Yankees Can Once Again End Red Sox’ Season

The Yankees put an end to the Red Sox’ recent resurgence and end their comeback bid with a win or two at Fenway Park this weekend.

In August 2006, the Yankees swept the Red Sox in a five-game series in Boston and ended the Red Sox’ season. It was a glorious four days with wins of 12-4 and 14-11 in a doubleheader on Friday, 13-5 on Saturday, 8-5 in 10 innings on Sunday and 2-1 on Monday. This weekend, the Yankees can end the Red Sox’ season once again and all they really have to do is win once at Fenway Park.

With the Yankees and Red Sox meeting for the third time this season, I emailed Mike Hurley of CBS Boston because that’s what I do when the Yankees and Red Sox play.

Keefe: It’s feel like forever since the Yankees and Red Sox played and therefore it feels like forever since I was up in Boston taking in the first Yankees sweep at Fenway Park since 2006.

Unfortunately, I missed the 2006 Boston Massacre as I had to sell my tickets to one of the doubleheader games being made up from Johnny Damon’s Fenway return that May, and I never got over missing out on being there for the five-game sweep and the end of the Red Sox’ 2006 season. This weekend I will be on the West Coast for this series and once again will miss out on the opportunity for the Yankees to end the Red Sox’ season, much like that August 2006 series.

But we have so much more to talk about before we get to what could be the end for the Red Sox. Let’s start with how we got to this point. And by “this point”, I mean, how we got to the All-Star break with the preseason AL East favorite Red Sox turning back the clock to 2012 and 2014 with another last-place worthy performance.

Hurley: It should be noted that you never – ever – do one of these things when things are going well for Boston sports. Red Sox and Bobby V are going down in flames? Podcast! Patriots lose in the playoffs? Podcast! DeflateGate accusations? Email exchange!

So it’s not surprising to see you pop up in the inbox with the Red Sox in last place before the All-Star break.

Nice to see you.

How’d we get to this point? We know how we all got this point. The Red Sox pitching was atrocious for the first month of the season and has yet to really recover. The starting staff used to be worst in the majors in collective ERA; now they’re fourth-worst.

That’s over-simplifying things, of course, but the teams worse than the Red Sox in starting ERA – Milwaukee, Colorado, Philadelphia – all find themselves in last place as well. No starting pitching, no bueno.

Keefe: How dare you say I only contact you when things aren’t going well for Boston teams. That couldn’t be any less true.

As it stands right now, the Yankees are 46-39 and in first place and the Red Sox are 41-45 and in last place. Six games separate them in the all-important loss column, and well, since I know you love it so much, here we go:

The Yankees have 77 games left. If they go 39-38 in those games, they will finish 85-77. The Red Sox would have to go 44-32 just to tie them. I don’t think the Yankees are going to play .506 baseball the rest of the way and I’m pretty sure the Red Sox aren’t about to go on a .579 run.

What does all of this mean? It means the Yankees basically have to win just once this weekend to keep the Red Sox at bay. That will give them a five-game lead in the loss column for the “second half” with three more games off the schedule.

All of the pressure is on the Red Sox and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Hurley: Yeah. Optimism is running a little too high around here. The Red Sox have won 9 of 13 and 13 of 19. It’s a nice run. But it’s not going to keep up.

I choose to look at the entirety of the Red Sox season, as well as what the Red Sox have been the past four years. I know they won it all in 2013, thereby ruining your life and making you mad to this very day, but they put forth an epic choke in 2011, they crapped the bed with Bobby V. in 2012, and they were the most boring last-place team in sports history last year.

I know what they are. People can make reasonable statements about their chances, such as the games back, the number of games left in the schedule, blah blah blah. But just look at how many games this team has given away due to bad pitching, idiotic mistakes or a combination of both.

They are what they are, and I don’t think the past two weeks means they’re suddenly a new team.

But here’s my question: I follow you on Twitter. I read your columns. I would be hard-pressed to find an instance of you saying one positive thing about the Yankees this year. You drooled all over A-Rod a lot, but then you complain about Joe Giradi’s use of him. You seemingly hate the outfield, and the infield, and the starting rotation. What makes you so confident that the Yankees are a plus-.500 team from now until the end of the season.

Keefe: I only complain about bad baseball decisions, bad baseball players and bad baseball plays.

If Joe Girardi wants to give players a day off on a Wednesday after having a day off on Monday and having another one on Thursday, I will complain.

If the Yankees want to take their best first-half starter (Adam Warren) and put him in the bullpen as a right-handed specialist while they continue to give CC Sabathia starts and then have the Steinbrenners apologize to us at the end of the season for not giving us a championship and that’s their only goal, I will complain.

If Brian Cashman signs Stephen Drew to a one-year, $5 million deal and then continue to give him at-bats, despite hitting .181/.257/.374 and citing “bad luck” over a two-year span, I will complain.

If Brett Gardner, an All-Star this year, decides to try to steal third with no outs or one outs in a game to get into what I call “better scoring position” and then gets thrown out, I will complain.

I only complain about things that are worth complaining about. The one spot where maybe I am wrong is with Mark Teixeira, given the 2009 throwback season he is having, but I’m not someone who lets three good months erase three years of not playing because of ridiculous injuries and underachieving when playing.

The thing that gives me most confidence with the Yankees is that they are in first place right now after having Masahiro Tanaka out from April 23 to June, Jacoby Ellsbury out from May 19 to July 8 and Andrew Miller out from June 9 to July 8. Wednesday was the first time they had their supposed best starter (Tanaka), best all-around player (Ellsbury) and arguably best reliever (Miller) since April 23, yet they managed to not only stay afloat, but stay at the top of the division. If hundreds of at-bats for Didi Gregorius and Stephen Drew, first-base and left-field appearances from Garrett Jones, starts from CC Sabathia and relief appearances from Esmil Rogers and David Carpenter couldn’t derail the Yankees’ season without their star players for so long, I have to believe in this team.

On the other hand, I can’t believe you don’t believe in Rick Porcello (and his $82.5 million contract), Wade Miley, Joe Kelley, Justin Masterson and Clay Buchholz! Right now the only Red Sox pitcher that scares me is Eduardo Rodriguez and I’m expecting him to throw a complete-game, two-hit shutout this weekend.

Hurley: I wasn’t necessarily saying your complaining wasn’t without warrant, though most of the time it is. And then when the Yankees win you never say anything. You’re the worst.

Anyways, Eduardo Rodriguez absolutely saved the Red Sox season. They were spiraling out of control and no starter could get to even the fourth inning. The kid is awesome.

Buchholz has been pretty great too. He’s got a 1.99 ERA in his last 10 starts. But all it takes is a butterfly to land on his shoulder and he’ll spend the next two months on the DL. I don’t think anyone’s banking on him the rest of the way.

I could sit here and make a case for the Red Sox much like you did yours. They’re actually getting standard production out of every position now except first base, and probably right field. And I do think they’re a little bit better now than they were in May.

But even if I can see them playing better baseball, and even if I can see the Yankees slipping, I can’t see the other three AL East teams simultaneously falling apart to give the Red Sox an avenue to the postseason. That would just be so miraculous, it would be stupid to talk about it seriously.

Still, a sweep one way or the other this weekend, and things get really interesting. If either team takes two out of three (WHICH ALWAYS HAPPENS FOR CHRIST’S SAKE), I will be thoroughly bored.

Keefe: I do talk when the Yankees are winning and am very supportive of A-Rod, Betances, Miller, Gardner, Chris Young, Tanaka, Pineda and Chasen Shreve though that’s about it.

I think Friday is the most important game of the series for the Yankees with Pineda starting. Ivan Nova has only made three starts (two great, one bad) since coming back from Tommy John and with Rodriguez pitching, that game is not likely to go well. That leaves us with Sunday where Nathan “Hits” Eovaldi is sure to give up 10 hits in five innings and Wade Miley is likely to give up his share too. However, that Sunday night game will probably end up being the 2-1 game and the other two will be blowouts.

I just hope Pineda shuts down the Red Sox on Friday, Buchholz implodes early like he did on Sunday Night Baseball in the Bronx in April and the Yankees win that game, quiet Red Sox fans and make the Saturday and Sunday games much less important.

But I’m not stupid enough to think that is going to happen. No game and no lead has ever been safe Yankees at Fenway Park and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yankees lost the first two games of the series. That would make Sunday a must-win and that would mean my weekend in Los Angeles/San Diego will be ruined.

Why can’t the Red Sox just go away and then all of the attention can be on Tom Brady and his suspension, which is how I’m sure you want it anyway.

Hurley: I was looking up Eovaldi earlier. An 8-2 record with a 4.55 ERA? That is ridiculous. He gets over seven runs of support each start. I think even Neil Keefe could win games with that kind of run support, and I’ve seen him pitch a Wiffle Ball, and he is absolute garbage.

A part of me wants the Red Sox to sweep, because that’ll make for an interesting July, August and September. But another part of me likes to watch the world burn. Please don’t tell that to anybody in Boston though.

Keefe: If you mean having a career Wiffle ball ERA of somewhere around 0.50 as “absolute garbage” then I guess that phrase fits the bill.

Well, I figure you already have all of Pittsburgh, part of Canada and Indianapolis hating you, so you should throw your hometown of Boston into the mix. There is too much optimism in Boston, or at least that’s the feeling I get, about the Red Sox considering that even with a sweep of the Yankees this weekend, they will enter the All-Star break under .500. I don’t care how crammed the AL East standings are, playing under .500 for this long shouldn’t give anyone optimism, so it’s refreshing to hear that you aren’t in that boat.

And since you’re not in that boat and you want to become the next generation’s Dan Shaughnessy, why not dust off that Yankees hat you made your day buy you when you were a kid and jump on board? There will always be a seat for Michael F. Hurley on the Yankees train.

Hurley: I guess I could refer to the time to when I was the Albert Pujols to your Brad Lidge as “garbage,” but then I would be discrediting my own greatness. So I won’t do that. I’ll say you were a pretty good Wiffle Ball pitcher. Until you met me. Yeah, I might have thrown my arm out that day and my arm strength has never been the same, but at the same time I destroyed your career for several years, so it was worth it.

I won’t be a Yankees fan, but I will say, when my men’s league team needed a new name, I pushed for the Yankees. I kind of liked the idea of showing up to fields around Massachusetts in full pinstripes, just having everyone who sees us be disgusted and full of rage. Turns out I was the only one on the team who liked this idea. Oh well.

Go Red Sox!

Blogs • Yankees

Jul 1, 2015

Brian Cashman and Yankees Know Nothing About Pitching

The Yankees’ putting Adam Warren in the bullpen and skipping a Michael Pineda start are the latest moves on a long list of ridiculous decisions.

Maybe it doesn’t seem like the best time to complain about the Yankees’ handling of their pitching because the offense scored one run on Tuesday night and one run on Monday night and one run on Sunday and two runs on Friday and no runs on Thursday. But there’s not a whole lot that can be done when it comes to the offense except hope someone other than Brett Gardner, Alex Rodriguez or Mark Teixeira gets contributes, hope that Didi Gregarious and Stephen Drew hit like Major Leaguers and hope that Carlos Beltran retires. When it comes to pitching there is plenty that can be done and the Yankees seem to be doing it all wrong.

After CC Sabathia got embarrassed by the Phillies last week, I wrote that he is done. He followed it up with another ugly performance (7.1 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 2 HR) that actually lowered his ERA from 5.65 to 5.59. And on the same night that Sabathia made another $700,000 to lose for the Yankees in what has become the easiest and best job in the world (I will gladly pitch in the majors and lose games for $23 million), the Yankees announced Adam Warren had been removed from the rotation and put in the bullpen. The same Adam Warren who boasts the lowest ERA in the Yankees’ rotation.

Twenty-four hours after Warren was put in the bullpen to supposedly give the Yankees the right-handed reliever they lacked, he entered a game the Yankees were losing and got the last eight outs of a loss. The Yankees’ ERA leader among starting pitchers wasn’t even setting up for Dellin Betanaces in his new role, he was holding a one-run deficit that was never overcome. That role makes a lot of sense and seems like the best use of his abilities.

The Yankees had their PR statement ready for reporters by citing Warren’s inning limits as the reason for the decision. With 82 2/3 innings as a starter, Warren had exceeded his innings totals for the last two seasons, but as a starter in the minors in 2012, he threw 155 innings between Triple-A and the Yankees, and in 2011, he threw 152 1/3 innings. This isn’t really unchartered territory for Warren, it’s just unchartered enough that the Yankees think they can get away with their reasoning.

Maybe the fans who believe the Yankees can do no wrong (the fans that believe Didi Gregarious was worth trading for and that Stephen Drew was worth giving $5 million to and that Esmil Rogers will turn his career around after 454 career innings) might have bought the Yankees’ answer to Warren going to the bullpen if Joe Girardi hadn’t said last week that Sabathia would remain in the rotation because of money. But Girardi gave away their not-so-secret secret last week: this isn’t about innings limits, it’s about money and money owed.

Money is the reason Sabathia was on the mound to lose to the Phillies last Tuesday and it’s the reason he was on the mound to lose to the Angels on Monday. It’s why he will get to start against the Rays on Sunday at the Stadium and likely lose that game too. The Yankees pretend that winning is everything, but when they owe a 35-year-old left-hander more per start (around $700,000) than they are paying a much better starter in Warren for the entire season ($572,600), well, it’s obvious why they chose to let Sabathia continue his campaign to allow 40-plus home runs this season.

But let’s pretend for a second that the decision to remove Warren from the rotation is about innings limits and that the Yankees think everyone is stupid enough to believe their lie. In order to even pretend, we need the answer to two questions: 1.) When was the last time the Yankees successfully handled a starting pitcher when it comes to injuries? and 2.) How do the Yankees think they can protect pitchers from injury? Recent Yankees history can answer these questions for us.

Eight years ago, Joba Chamberlain was called up to the Yankees and the “Joba Rules” were set in place to protect him. Joe Torre would have to give Chamberlain one day off for each inning pitched. And if Chamberlain were to pitch two innings, he would have had to have been rested two days beforehand.

“That’s in stone,” Joe Torre said about the rules in July 2008. “That’s basically to protect the future of the kid.”

The Yankees stuck with that version of the rules through 2007 and Joba’s dominating rookie season, and then in 2008, with his transformation from reliever to starter, they created new rules for him based on innings and pitch counts as if he were an 11-year-old in the Little League World Series. After his 12th start in the majors, Joba went on the disabled list with a shoulder injury, and in 2011, Brian Cashman said, “(Joba) hasn’t been the same since that episode in Texas.” But weren’t the rules Cashman created supposed to prevent that episode in Texas from happening?

In 2009, Joba remained a starter, though not a very good one (9-6, 4.75 ERA in 31 starts) before being put back into the bullpen for the postseason. He never started another game, but he did pitch to a 4.40 ERA out of the bullpen in 2010 and after 28 2/3 innings in 2012, he needed Tommy John surgery. Since returning from the surgery, he has a 4.01 ERA in 146 innings.

Since the 2003 offseason, the Yankees replaced the loss of Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and David Wells with Kevin Brown, Jon Lieber and Javier Vazquez; gave Jaret Wright a three-year, $21 million deal; traded away Tyler Clippard for Jonathan Albaladejo; relied on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in 2007 and because of it were forced to pay Roger Clemens $17.1 million for 17 mediocre starts; overhyped and rushed Phil Hughes to the majors; gave Ian Kennedy a starting job he hadn’t earned; replaced Hughes and Kennedy with Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson; gave A.J. Burnett a five-year, $82.5 million contract and then traded him to Pittsburgh and paid him to pitch for the Pirates. At this point, I feel like Lenny Koufax telling the judge in Big Daddy all of the reasons why his son, Sonny (Adam Sandler), shouldn’t have custody of Julian. Except there isn’t a happy ending here.

Three weeks ago, the Yankees skipped Michael Pineda’s start to supposedly protect his innings limit. Pineda at the time was 7-2 with a 3.33 ERA and coming off back-to-back wins with 17 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings. With 10 days rest, he was rocked by the Orioles (4.1 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR). In the four starts since he was skipped, he is 1-3 with a 6.45 ERA, 1.478 WHIP and .311 batting average against. The Yankees interrupted and derailed Pineda’s ace-like season for no reason other than some made-up innings limit idea in order to protect a pitcher who already missed the entire 2012 and 2013 seasons and most of 2014.

Pitchers get hurt. That’s what they do. And the only real way to protect a pitcher from getting hurt is to not let them pitch. The idea that the Yankees have some formula or science to protecting pitchers is a bigger joke than calling Jacoby Ellsbury “tough”. They have no idea what they’re doing, no one does, and even though no one does, the Yankees have even less of an idea than anyone else.

The Yankees’ unnecessarily tinkered with their best starting pitcher’s season and he hasn’t been the same, their $155 million free agent pitcher with a torn elbow has been inconsistent, their former ace wouldn’t be picked up off waivers and their best starter in the last week has made two starts since returning Tommy John surgery. And now their most consistent starter all season is pitching out of the bullpen in games the Yankees are losing.

The Brian Cashman Yankees don’t know pitching. They don’t know how to develop them consistently and they certainly don’t know how to keep them healthy. The only thing the Yankees know when it comes to pitching is how to give a free-agent pitcher a blank check and from there they just hope they stay healthy. Even then, they don’t know what they’re doing.

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