Short and ugly night for Allan James Burnett
-AJ Burnett had nothing last night, but it wasn’t due to him being fatigued from going on short rest, it was about him not having a breaking ball and being completely unable to locate his fastball. He said after the game that he felt strong, he just couldn’t locate his pitches. If anyone tries to argue that Burnett’s lack of command was due to short rest, point out to them that Cliff Lee was falling behind hitters all night as well, complained of poor command in the post game press conference, and was working on full rest. It’s called pitching, you don’t always have your best stuff every time you go out there. Especially when were talking about someone as inconsistent as AJ Burnett.
-I don’t know about you, but if one of the Phillies pitchers gave up 6 Runs in 2.0 IP, I’d be cheering him. I’d also be pinching myself if I ever had a seat that good to a World Series game.
-Jose Molina got a grand total of 1 AB last night. Possibly the most analyzed, fretted over and discussed-in-advance one At Bat in the history of Baseball. He also only had one official At Bat (and a Walk) in Game 2 when AJ threw 7 strong innings. In both games, he blocked a bunch of pitches in the dirt that Posada probably doesn’t, some of which could have led to Runs by the Phillies. But unfortunately, defensive Run prevention is a largely unmined area of statistical analysis, so it’s difficult to argue against the well documented hitting stats. In any case, even if Jorge had played and everything else was the same (which I doubt) it’s difficult to argue his hitting opportunities would have changed either game.
-The worst case scenario with AJ came to pass and I’m sure Girardi will be second guessed for the next 24 hours for his decision to start him. Still the right move, at least we had a chance to get the good AJ. With Chad Gaudin, it’s difficult to argue the result would have been any better as Mo pointed out yesterday. Even if he’s on top of his game, Gaudin doesn’t match up well facing the power laden lefty hitters on the Phillies. Mark Feinsand agrees, so I’m in good company on this one.
-Remember when all the second guessers were screaming for Phil Coke to face Raul Ibanez instead of leaving in Dave Robertson after Game 1? I do.
-Lost in last night’s loss was some nice work (albeit low leverage) by Dave Robertson, Alfredo Aceves and Phil Hughes. But we have seen each of those Yankee relievers fail at times this post season, along with everyone else not named Mariano. But whatever bullpen issues we have, the Philly problems are clearly worse. The Phillies didn’t even have their closer Brad Lidge warming up in a Save situation last night. Madsen was shaky at best, giving up 3 Hits and a Run in just 1 inning of work and was bailed out of a disastrous outing by the Derek Jeter DP. It’s easy to assume that Game 6 will come down to a battle of both bullpens, with Pettitte working on short rest and Pedro not known for his ability to go deep into games. That could be a very wild game, and given the inconsistencies of both bullpens and the power bats in both lineups, I won’t even hazard a guess as to who would win it.
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I agree 100% that short rest was not the issue with AJ. He was in the same position in the ALCS on full rest and ended up with pretty much the same result – 4 runs without recording an out. The bottom line is that at the end of the day he is a 2 pitch pitcher who throws 70% fastballs. The logical thought would be that the phillies would be up there hacking at the first fastball they saw and that’s what they did. I did not like the idea of pitching AJ in game 6 as i felt like he is was our biggest wild card. We had to throw him in game 5 or 6 and doing it in game 5 and allowing us to run pettite out there in game 6 was the right move. If he lays an egg in game 6 we would have been much worse off. Getting 2 cracks at home with the guys who are our most reliable options was the way to go. It really felt like Girardi was managing with game 6 in mind (not using marte or joba even when they made it close). Maybe i’m way off base but to be fair, i dont think he trusts burnett all that much. he knew our best shot to win this was at home with a stacked lineup and he was right to make the call that allowed him to run the guys out there that he’s conifident in can keep us in the game.
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“That could be a very wild game, and given the inconsistencies of both bullpens and the power bats in both lineups, I won’t even hazard a guess as to who would win it.”
Here’s my guess. Yanks in a walk-off (of course) and pie in Jeter’s face (got to atone for the DP (although he has had a great series otherwise) and he hasn’t gotten pie’d this year).
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His problems may just stem directly from the fact that he had to pitch against Lee, who has been unhittable the last 3 months.
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