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You Won’t Like Joe Girardi When He’s Angry

I generally try not to make assumptions about a team’s mental state, because who knows what players are actually thinking during any given game? But I couldn’t help wondering this weekend, with a playoff spot all but sewn up and the Jeter hype finally over, if the Yankees hadn’t lost focus a bit. It would certainly be understandable.

The fourth inning of today’s game, when Johnny Damon forgot how many outs there were and nearly threw a live ball into the stands, allowing a run to score, did nothing to undermine this theory. But after that little wake-up call – and after Alex Rodriguez and Joe Girardi were both ejected for arguing balls and strikes – the Yankees got their act together, and they went on to win 13-3.  Correlation is not causation but hey, the human mind loves to impose a narrative.

CC Sabathia started off a little shaky this afternoon, and he couldn’t hold the 1-0 lead provided by Alex Rodriguez’s first inning double. But after allowing three runs in the first four innings, he settled in and kept the O’s off the board through seven. In the bottom of the fourth, Melky Cabrera’s two-run single (he whacked a slider into center with a neat little piece of 0-2 hitting) tied the game at three. The promising inning ended when Alex Rodriguez struck out looking on a pitch that, while close, was pretty clearly a bit outside on the replay. And once A-Rod got the chance to duck into the video room and confirm his suspicions, just before the bottom of the fifth, he started hectoring home plate ump Marty Foster about it from the dugout. So Foster tossed him. And then Joe Girardi hulked out.

At first I thought Girardi was just trying to get tossed to “fire up” the team, which we’ve seen him do before; sometimes it seems like he’s just going through the argumentative motions, waiting to get run. But today he looked genuinely furious – he was yelling just inches from Foster’s face, and I think it’s pretty hard to fake that scary bulging-vein thing. He was thrown out, of course, so Tony Pena and Eric Hinske took over in the dugout and at third, respectively.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, took the lead when Jeter and Damon scored on a Hideki Matsui single, and that was it for O’s starter Jeremy Guthrie. Ex-Yank Sean Henn – who per Tyler Kepner’s nice Bats post, has no idea how he even ended up on the Orioles – got Baltimore out of the inning, but subsequent relievers did not fare as well. After Phil Hughes did his thing in the eighth, the Yankee offense unloaded: Damon walked, Teixeira singled, Matsui homered – nice day for him – and things went on in that vein until New York led 13-3. This was not enough of a lead for Brian Bruney to refrain from walking two batters in the ninth, but it was enough for that not to matter.

After the game both Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez explained their outbursts by talking about how important this game was, which… it wasn’t, really. But there are still two weeks of baseball left to be played, and a 2007-Mets-style death spiral is not yet technically impossible, so I guess you would have to keep telling yourself that.

Categories:  Bronx Banter  Emma Span

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13 comments

1 Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO   ~  Sep 13, 2009 11:59 pm

Look forward to the highlights of this one in the evening..news here is going bonkers over Ichiro reaching 200 hits...how appropriate on an infield single??

Seattle-Texas just finished on tv here, King Felix with another gem..there were maybe 500 people in Texas Stadium by the end..guess now that dem Cowboys are back, no one cares about the Rangers..

2 thelarmis   ~  Sep 14, 2009 12:18 am

[0] "But there are still two weeks of baseball left to be played"

THREE weeks! 18 games. 6 per weeks. thursday's off. 9 home, 9 away.

i can't believe the regular season's almost over.

we've got 50 wins at home. we'd have to win 8 of 9 to reach that total on the road, not that it means anything...

i guess there's also 3 weeks for the shit sox to somehow blow a 4-game lead in the wild card to tex-ass. rangers are without two of their best hitters - young and hamilton - both should be back within a week or so...

3 Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO   ~  Sep 14, 2009 12:23 am

[2] Yo Elvin! How you doing? Busy and exhausted on this side of the world..do me a favor and hit on my site, check the poll Question on the lower right side of the main page and Vote!! Jazz Democracy to save the world, and we need your input!! :)

4 thelarmis   ~  Sep 14, 2009 12:35 am

[3] rock on. i'll check it soon. have to run over to my studio for a little bit, then grab some quick sleep. i'm up early tomorrow - big session on my material with BOTH of my engineers! : )

5 Mr. OK Jazz TOKYO   ~  Sep 14, 2009 12:48 am

[4] Nice, good luck at the studio and at the meeting tomorrow! Really exciting to record your soo record, isn't it?

6 Mattpat11   ~  Sep 14, 2009 1:19 am

I have a bad feeling that the Marty Foster drama isn't over

7 rbj   ~  Sep 14, 2009 8:44 am

Great quote from the Henn story:
"“Don’t go to the hotel,” the Orioles had told him. “We don’t have a reservation for you.”"

Man that is cold.

8 OldYanksFan   ~  Sep 14, 2009 8:48 am

Maybe not that important for the standings, but being swept by the last place O's would have been demoralizing. This one isn't quite in the bag yet. Plus we want to rest our guys the last week, so knocking off Boston and the Angels ASAP is on order.

9 Yankee Mama   ~  Sep 14, 2009 8:55 am

When did Sean Henn get traded to the O's? I must have missed that memo, not that it's earth shattering?

I agree with Emma. Their lackluster playing had to be a direct result of their position in the standings coupled with coming off the pressure of Jeter's accomplishment.

Big question, which AJ is going to show up for the post season? Would Girardi put back to back lefties and make Pettitte the no. 2 guy?

10 Rich   ~  Sep 14, 2009 9:29 am

A win today would be sweet

[9] Last week.

I really think there is always a question about how every player will perform in any given playoff series no matter how well or how poorly they have performed in the past. I'm confident that AJ will pitch well.

11 Shaun P.   ~  Sep 14, 2009 9:44 am

[6] That's my #1 concern about the postseason right now. If this guy is working the postseason, especially a Yankees game . . . I don't want to think about it. Hopefully he won't be part of the postseason umpiring crews.

12 Rich   ~  Sep 14, 2009 10:17 am

Via Ken Davidoff: --"I wonder if Marty Foster will get a postseason assignment? I'm betting not."

13 Emma Span   ~  Sep 14, 2009 11:49 am

[6] I dunno, but umpire - like third base coach - is one of those jobs where if casual fans get to know your name, it's not a good sign.

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"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver