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Opinion
·4 min read

Instant Reaction: The West Coast follows the Yankees home

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Gut Reaction

This is the maddest I have been from a game this year.

Bronx Pineda

Pineda opened the game as if he forgot he was wearing the pinstriped uniform. Double, walk, and a single is not how we wanted this game to start off. The fact that he was able to get out of that with only one run on the board was pretty incredible. They had a run in, and two men on. It looked bad. He couldn’t locate. He and Gary were speaking two different languages, which is bizarre since Big Mike is one of the few starting pitchers who speaks the same language as Gary. He got out of it though. A soft ground ball, a perfectly shifted Didi, and a strike out cleaned up the mess. From then on he continued to struggle but never lost us the game. He gave up a lot of two-out hits and wasn’t able to overcome Carter’s pathetic error in the second. Those two runs land squarely on Carter but I have to say, it seems like Pineda never picks his fielders up. When the going gets tough, his shoulders get droopy and his pitches start hanging. Sabathia always seems to pick up his fielders. He locks it down and induces a double play or a grabs a couple strikeouts. I have no stats to support what I just said but I’m pretty sure I am correct and I’d like CC to pass that trait on to Big Mike in the coming weeks.

Bridwell vs. The Bombers: the short version

It seemed like Bridwell was giving every single batter a chance to get us back in the game. We had a ton of 2-0 and 3-1 counts to go along with our 5 walks. We just never did anything with any of it. Hicks impressed me with his patience as he just got off the DL. He sat back and watched his team lose 3 games in a row. I bet he was amped to come back and help the team. If he came out in that first at bat swinging for the fences to announce his presence with authority I wouldn’t have cared one bit. Instead, he did the smart thing, he worked the count and handed the baton to Judge.

Alright, then Aaron hit his 24th homerun* to make it 3-2. Gary comes up and ropes a line drive into the seats to tie the game. Those were very fun. I enjoyed them a lot but at this point who gives a shit.

The T-Clip Meltdowns Continue

As soon as they showed Clippard warming up in the bullpen my heart sunk. Literally. It was like I was in high school and I got a “we need to talk” text. Nothing good comes from either of those situations.

I’m not a Girardi basher. I don’t blindly hate him. I like to think I don’t blindly love him either. In the past, he has been really good at making sure bullpen arms get their rest and stay fresh. This year, he has made some crucial mistakes though.

His stubborn trust in Tyler Clippard has officially gone too far. If they show him in the bullpen and the entire fan base moans and groans then I’m pretty sure there’s something off. I’m not saying the fans are smart, they (we) aren’t. We’re a bunch of idiots. BUT EVEN A BUNCH OF IDIOTS KNOW CLIPPARD IS THE ABSOLUTE WRONG MOVE THERE. He’s off. He’s so incredibly off. He needs to work things out and get it back together. Want to know what situation is good for having pitchers work stuff out? Blowouts. Slop time. Want to know the worst possible situation to have a guy work things out is? Tied ball games in the seventh inning. Bringing Clippard in there was the equivalent of having your arms held behind your back in a fight. You know the punch is coming. You see them winding up. You see them step into it. It’s coming but you can’t do anything to stop it. All we could do was sit there and watch the 7th inning, waiting nervously for the punch to come. To Clippard’s credit, he wasted absolutely no time. Second pitch of the inning–BAM! Gut punch.

Absolutely terrible.

The bad news is Clippard isn’t the only problem. Besides Betances and Chapman, we have no one right now. There is no quick fix. We can fix Clippard by not putting him in high leverage situations for a while. The problem is someone is going to have to step up and replace him. Currently, it looks like no one wants to do that.

As for tonight, I would have liked to see Joe go to Betances in the 7th and have him and Chapman try to get nine outs. We just lost six in a row. We needed a win. Sigh.

See also

Let’s hope Gumby can give us some distance on Wednesday. I’m desperate.

 

*25th

 

P.S. Al Leiter was atrocious in the booth tonight.

 

Follow me on Twitter @Jomboy_.