I would have been more stupefied by Burnett going back out for the bottom of the seventh, if Scosia had not stepped on his own johnson by replacing Lackey with 67 year old Darren Oliver in the T7 himself. Just jaw dropping idiocy on both parts.

And you can add to the “men with no balls” category, managers who only use closers for the last 3 or 4 outs of a game when they have the lead. Rebecca Glass pointed out the obvious. With the game, season, playoffs on the line, you do not hold anything back in reserve. Especially a guy like Rivera who has proven over and over again why he is the best at what he does. His performance in post-season is not human. He is the surest bet to come along since shaved dice and marked cards.

I would have had Rivera in the game so fast, his head would have spun around, and fuck the media if it hadn’t worked. If you decide to use your best pitcher in the highest leverage situations and the upside is clinching the pennant and the downside is the LCS goes back to NYC after a day off, that is a decision that is automatic-systematic. Girardi in fact, did the opposite. Bringing in a guy fresh off the 60 day DL after an earlier stint on the 15 day DL in April, who was a ham n egger middle reliever who used to be a pretty good middle reliever for the Pirates and White Sox a few years earlier and a guy who has blown almost as many saves (26) as he has converted (36) in his career. This is the guy who the Angels would have chosen to face if it had been up to them. Sciosia must have been going WTFWTFWTFWTFWTF!!!! Praise be to fucking Allah and the forty thieves! We are saved and free at last, bless Jesus and his 12 brothers too. Unbelievable. I think I swallowed three flies when Marte came in. And than bringing in Rivera to hold a one run deficit. Mismanaging of resources like this must have been learned from Bernie Madoff.

Girardi seems to have lapsed into the old “dance with the girl we came with” cliched approach. “Hey, the guy settled down after the first inning, he can do it again and then I’ll have Chamberlain/Hughes for the 8th and Rivera if neccessary. Burnett’s his pitch count was fine, his pitches were down, he’s a gamer, he knows how to get his rhythm back, and so on.”

I don’t know if he said any of that, because when I’ve seen a game in its entirety, as mismanaged as this one was, I simply didn’t have the energy nor interest in listening what the chatterers had to offer.

Really mind-boggling. But the NY media can’t criticize Girardi. They lobbied for him for years. The same way they lobbied for Clemens, for Jeter, for Mattingly, for Murcer, Pettit, Ford, Kubek, Mantle and for any number of guys that enabled them to be the little self-righteous chipmunks that they are. Whoever played ball with them, gave them good quotes and made their job easier, thats who they promote, and defend. They’re front running little political puppets, with no tolerance for any thought or accomplishment west of the Hudson River.

Fuckers even think Buffalo is in another state.