The Ten Games Blown By The Pen Before Last Night
Posted by Steve L. on September 14th, 2007 · Comments (7)
April 13, 2007
April 15, 2007
April 20, 2007
May 7, 2007
June 23, 2007
June 26, 2007
July 7, 2007
August 15, 2007
August 20, 2007
August 24, 2007
So, which of these eleven games bothered you the most – and why?
Man, if the Yankees could have won half of these games, they’d be in first place right now…
My vote is a tie – April 15th and the 20th. The 15th loss to the A’s was a punch in the gut. This was just Mo losing his concentration, period. You could see he was a bit off. But, with two outs, two on to make that pitch – I don’t care who is hitting…just bad. The 20th hurt me as much b/c I was at the game in Fenway. This one is on Torre. He went to Mo too early, and the Red Sox smelled blood. Any loss to the Red Sox at Fenway by way of a comeback hurts like a punch in the gut. That’s why it is a tie for me. One thing though Steve, every team has games blown by the pen, so it is way too easy to say “shoulda, woulda, coulda.”
I think the Yankee bullpen situation is continuing to look up. You ALWAYS want homegrown options to be the majority of your bullpen. You know where they’ve been, and you’ve controlled their development. Plus, they’re cheap. You can augment it with a few outsider veterans, but you simply can’t rely on them. I think Cashman has realized that home-grown products, as long as you’ve got a good player development program, are generally going to be vastly superior to what’s out there on the free agent market. Because let’s face it – good, reliable relievers are still pretty cheap, and aren’t going to be let go.
Look at the relief pitchers the Yankees have in the pipeline -
Kevin Whelan
Ross Ohlendorf
Humberto Sanchez
Dave Robertson
Mark Melancon
Oft-forgotten J.B. Cox
Scott Patterson
Wordekemper (recently brought home FSL pitcher of the year I think)
These guys are quality, quality arms. Robertson (one of, if not the top college closer in the 2006 draft class) and Sanchez are really better prospects than Kevin Whelan…and Whelan was the top relief prospect in the Tigers’ system. Relief prospects tend not to work out – they’re really just failed pitching prospects. But the Yankees have such a large quantity of quality arms putting up amazing numbers in the minors, it’s hard not to think that at least one or two of them will ‘make it’ in the majors. And that’s really all you need.
Definitely April 15, as I was there, along with my kids, proudly wearing their Yankee shirts. We then walked back to the car amidst the “Yankees suck” chants.
I think that 4/20, 5/07, and 6/23 hurt the most. Those all should have been wins for sure and there were some flukey plays and questionable moves involved.
“Man, if the Yankees could have won half of these games, they’d be in first place right now…”
That’s a pretty meaningless statement. Gagne has blown 3 games for the sox, papelbon a couple. Take those away and the sox are running away with the division.
It’s like saying “how many more games would the sox have won if JD had hit 300 with 20 home runs”. He didn’t.
Pointless.
For me, definitely the Shelly Duncan 9th inning homerun game on August 15th. The highest of highs to the lowest of lows in 20 minutes. I thoguht we might be watching the beginning of the end of Mo’s career, and (knocking on wood) it looks like we weren’t.
I don’t know if I consider last night as “blown” by the bullpen. The offense didn’t look capable of winning, though to be fair the Jays made a couple excellent plays in the last couple innings.
The April 15th one was the worst because of that bullshit call on broussard (?) at second base. That one was the least legitimate. Other than that the proctor loss to BAL was tough because he never gave himself a chance to get those guys out, and the henn losses sucked because they just did. Man was he awful.