Major League Baseball

Girardi, Scioscia can't escape pitching questions

Published Oct. 24, 2009 4:55 a.m. ET

Ken Rosenthal

Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, Mariano Rivera.

With a two-run lead to start the seventh inning, that is how the Yankees bullpen is supposed to work, right?

Well, that's not how it worked in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, thanks again to the curious late-inning stylings of Yankees manager Joe Girardi.

The Yankees, after falling to the Angels, 7-6, still lead the series, three games to two. But if not for questionable decisions by Girardi in both losses, they might already be headed to the World Series.

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Until this postseason, Girardi had been mostly praised for his bullpen management, particularly when compared with his predecessor, Joe Torre.

But whatever "rep" Girardi had developed, he is losing it quickly.

Yes, A.J. Burnett had only thrown 80 pitches through six innings, retiring 11 of his last 13 hitters. No matter. Girardi, after playing gleefully with his bullpen toys the entire postseason, picked an odd time to stop.

The Yankees bullpen had pitched only one inning the previous two days and that was by Chad Gaudin. Girardi could have started with Chamberlain, then used Hughes and Rivera for an inning-plus, if necessary.

Instead, Girardi effectively told Burnett, "Your game" — the same words that Angels manager Mike Scioscia did not utter to John Lackey with two outs and the bases loaded in the seventh, triggering a mini-tantrum from the pitcher and a meltdown by
the Angels bullpen.

FOX broadcaster Tim McCarver put it best, saying Lackey was Scioscia's best option. Well, Burnett was not the Yankees' best option to start the seventh. Simple as that.

The Yankees had sent 10 batters to the plate in the top half, scoring six times to rally from a 4-0 deficit.

Burnett, after allowing four runs in the first inning, had done his job, pitching five scoreless innings, giving the Yankees a chance to come back.

It was the perfect time to remove him — particularly since the bullpen supposedly is one of the Yankees' strengths.

"Yeah, we talked about it, but he was throwing the ball so well," Girardi said. "He put up five shutout innings. He had only thrown 80 pitches. We just liked what we saw from him."