Clueless Joe?

Joe Girardi has been making moves this entire playoff run that have made me scratch my head. To this point, every move he made turned to gold. He got bailed out by the A-Rod home run Saturday or he was staring at Freddy Guzman (Hairston would have pinch-hit so Hairston I guess) and Gardner as his last hopes vs Fuentes. Meanwhile Sciosca brilliantly had his regular lineup in with the only change being at catcher with the defensive stop Mathis in for Napoli and Matthews in for a slumping Juan Rivera (Matthews drew a big walk and scored a big run). On top of that his pitchers went 7/2/1/1/1.1....Girardi's pitchers? 6.1/.1/.1/.2/2.1/1.1/.1/1.1 KISS. On top of that Rivera has now pitched in every game, most of which over an inning (over two Saturday)...he is amazing and has yet to surrender a run. But if he comes in one of these games, isn't sharp and gets knocked around look no farther than the guy in the dugout flipping around a binder for meaningless small sample statistics like "oh man, Howie Kendrick is 1-2 off Robertson this year, I better go to the pen and use another arm" like he did last night. TURRRIBLE.

Great game in Philly last night though it effectively ended the series in all likelihood. The manager formerly known as clueless Joe had to watch as his flame-throwing closer surrendered an improbable game-winning double to Jimmy Rollins with two men on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. I will say this much - if that gets Jimmy Rollins going, whichever AL team ends up winning better get a little scared. With so much attention on the AL games there isn't enough talk that A) Ryan Howard is putting together one of the all-time post-seasons and B) The Phillies are every bit as good as the Yankees when their bullpen is pitching well and their lineup is going. People forget that the Yankees are going to be hurt when they have to travel to a National League park. They lose the DH and they don't have a very deep team. This World Series is far from the forgone conclusion many believe it to be. A big thing for the Phillies will be to see how Cole Hamels throws tomorrow. He's been pitching pretty well but always seems to have a rough inning when he gives up a three-run homer or just sees things fall apart. If he re-gains form here, this team is murderous.

Torre Getting Ripped

Apparently, the LA media is predictably all over Joe Torre for his decision to leave in 21-year old Clayton Kershaw for "too long" in last night's NLCS opener in what would become a loss to the defending champion Phillies.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plaschke16-2009oct16,0,1346275.column

There is Bill Plaschke's (of Around the Horn fame) article.

There was wildness, whiffling, waffling, a proud kid being whittled into an absolute wreck.

Clayton Kershaw walked the pitcher on four pitches. He walked the third baseman on four pitches. He put one on a tee for the catcher to crush into dark blue oblivion.

Did I say he walked the pitcher on four pitches?

With a 21-year-old sophomore bumping and staggering through a roomful of boos, the fifth inning Thursday contained every element of a textbook youthful playoff meltdown except for one.

An adult to stop it.

My problem with Plaschke here is that a) his writing is divisive - the first thing he says is that he walked the pitcher. Well, first off that was after the three-run homer. b) While I understand that he felt he should have taken him out before Rollins - HE GOT ROLLINS OUT. AND THEN STRUCK OUT VICTORINO. He was sstill flashing bits of wildness, but no manager actually wants to pull his pitcher in the 5th inning. On top of that, from what I understand, Jeff Weaver was suffering flu-like symptoms and wasn't available. I can't believe I'm admitting it, but Jeff Weaver is the only type of pitcher you want to go to in the 5th inning of game 1, no matter how good your bullpen is. Yeah, you want to have a quick hook with your starters in the playoffs, but you also don't want to use up your entire bullpen. With the way Cole Hamels was pitching there was no way to predict if the Dodgers would even score again. Could you imagine if he pulled Kershaw after apparently settling, getting Rollins out and then striking out Victorino - and then the Phillies won anyway? The same writers (cough * Plaschke * cough) would be killing Torre for "using up the bullpen." The fact that he looked un-hittable for the first 4 innings, and possibly settled back in before facing the heart of the order is just the icing on the cake..nothing Joe could do here but sit back and hope.

Look, I'm not opposed to questioning a managerial decision. And believe me, I used to kill Torre on some of his moves when he was with the Yanks. But this is your classic second-guess. Were there signs Kershaw was in trouble? Certainly. Did they have a better option to face Utley and Howard, with the added bonus of not having to use up their bullpen in game 1 (a game they were already trailing)? No, probably not.

It was an exciting game 1. The Dodgers got 3 of the 5 runs back in the bottom half of the inning and still had every chance to get to a questionable Phillies bullpen. Bottom line is this - the Phils wheeled out Chad Durbin to help work out of a jam (he kisses men, on the lips!! come on! that was him right? I thought so, but didn't re-check). They used JA "never thrown a strike in my life" Happ.
They brought out Chan Ho Park who worked a perfect scoreless 7th right through the heart of the Dodgers lineup. But I suppose we should also kill Joe Torre for that?

And I do find it funny how much Plaschke pushes the whole kid thing. After four innings he probably had written his lede sentence as "Clayton Kershaw is still a kid by major league standards, but last night he was a man among men." Oh wait, that's probably not poetic enough for baseball writing's own poet laureate, Billy P.

NLCS: The Other Series

Baseball is back today as the Phillies head to LA with a battle of talented southpaws in Cole Hamels and Clayton Kershaw. Hamels hasn't been the same MVP-caliber pitcher he was last year as he led the Phillies to a championship but it's interesting that Vegas has lined him +127 even on the road against the young Kershaw. The Phils are a very good road team and with the more experienced arm. Game two will be tomorrow and is scheduled with a sickening matchup of Pedro Martinez and Vicente Padilla. Padilla is fresh off a complete gem but is Vicente Padilla...and Pedro has been magical down the stretch, until they decided he was '08 CC Sabathia and threw him 115 pitches and then came back with a 130+ pitch outing down the stretch. Now, I believe his arm is actually detached from his right shoulder and they have to glue it into place before games.

Game 3 will be Sunday night as both teams will travel eastward to Philly and it will be Hikori Kuroda vs. Cliff Lee. Kuroda is a very underrated pitcher but this is clearly a game you have to expect the Phils to win at home.

Game 4 is Tuesday. The man originally projected to toss game 1 for LAD, Randy Wolf is scheduled to face Joe Blanton. Obviously, these things can sometimes change depending on what the series is at. This would be a good battle of crafty pitchers, or possibly a good battle of mashing lineups.

Game 5 Wednesday 9/21. Back to Hamels/Kershaw except this one would be played in Philly.

Game 6 - Friday back in LA, Pedro/Padilla.

Game 7 - Saturday. Lee/Kuroda.

Not a terrible job by MLB in spacing out the games too much. This is about as tight as it is going to get. Kind of strange to schedule a game 7 on Saturday I feel? That is one you'd almost rather they skip a day and play Sunday night as everyone would be watching (Yanks/Angels possible game 7 is scheduled for that Sunday).

So beside that, what actually matters here - what is going to happen? Well, while most everyone is rooting for Joe Torre to bring his team to the World Series for a possibly electric rematch his the team that made him, the Yankees...no one seems to want to give the defending champs their due. This is essentially the same Phillies team that won the whole thing last year, the difference?
Last year their bullpen was a huge strength and this year they can't get anyone out. There is no question the bullpen could end up costing them, but it seems as if it has quietly settled in a touch. On the other side Joe Torre knows his biggest (and arguably only) advantage is the strength of his bullpen. What he will need is big outings from Kershaw and Wolf and will be asking Padilla and Kuroda to give him something like 6 innings, 3 runs...then he can turn it over to a dominant bullpen and see if his lineup can get to 4.

The problem is this Phillies lineup is getting hot at the wrong time for LAD. People for some reason still don't realize that if Rollins or Victorino get on ahead of Utley and Howard it's almost a lock they're going to score. And when they both get on, it is huge trouble. Not to mention a guy like Jayson Werth who gets absolutely red-hot at times. The Phillies lineup might not be the absolute best in the MLB, but it is the most dangerous (certainly in the NL at least). Throw in Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels and suddenly you have a team which I think should be the favorite to win this series (they are not) and ultimately the most dangerous team remaining in the playoffs for the Yankees (unless the Angels continue to be their kryptonite).

Prediction: Phillies in 5 (originally said in 6 but it's so pewch to predict a team in 6 games, everyone always predicts - this team in 6, that team in 6...show some creativity).


I would like to mention that USA tied Costa Rica in a thriller yesterday. I caught the tail end...they were trailing 2-1 in extra time, must have been the 94th minute (scheduled for 5 extra minutes), USA gets a corner kick and despite being a man down, somehow some cat is left completely unguarded and drills a perfect header past the goalie and a defender sitting in net. Of course, therein lies the problem with soccer, they just got a tie and you would have thought they just won the World Cup. No game that ends in a tie can really be considered a classic either... It's just a problem with soccer in my opinion.

Another exciting finish to any of us who bet Argentina +175 yesterday when they broke a 0-0 tie in the 86th minute for the 1-0 win.