CLEVELAND _ After everything that Joe Girardi did to dazzle us during Tuesday's wild-card win, the bullpen wizardry he performed to survive Luis Severino's one-out playoff debut, the manager's series of missteps in Friday's Game 2 of the Division Series was an astonishing development. How was this the same guy that deftly used his relief corps for 26 outs that night in the Bronx, to the cheers of the data-driven revolutionaries?
When Girardi had to beat the Twins, after spotting them a 3-0 lead, he was near perfect. But Friday, against the defending AL champion Indians _ a team that won 102 games during the regular season _ he picked a rough time to have an off night. And there's really no other way to describe the manner in which the Yankees flat-out blew an 8-3 lead from the sixth inning on, transforming that into a heartbreaking 9-8 loss in the 13th.
Where do we even begin? Probably with the starter, CC Sabathia, who after a shaky first two innings plowed into the sixth, retiring 11 straight Indians along the way, five by strikeout. Through five innings, Sabathia had thrown 70 pitches and looked pretty comfortable in what used to be his home ballpark.
But the obsession with going to the bullpen this October _ otherwise known as the devaluation of the starting pitcher _ has caused managers to be more anxious than ever, constantly counting backward from the 27th out. Girardi, guilty of a quick hook during the regular season, didn't have his full arsenal for Game 1, so he clearly was jonesing for them after the opening night loss.
In Girardi's mind, better to pull someone too early rather than too late. But in this situation, he should have trusted Sabathia, especially because he wasn't 100 percent sure how Chad Green and David Robertson would bounce back after being stretched much longer than usual to beat the Twins.
Instead, Sabathia got two batters _ a leadoff walk to Carlos Santana and a line-drive out to short by Jay Bruce. The next man up, Austin Jackson, was a career .300 hitter (9-for-30) against Sabathia, but the Yankees had a five-run cushion _ and they still were 11 outs from the finish line. That didn't stop Girardi from going to Green, who got Jackson on a fly ball, but Yan Gomes ripped a double off the leftfield wall and that led to another costly mistake by Girardi with pinch hitter Lonnie Chisenhall at the plate.
Chisenhall fouled off six straight fastballs, but the seventh pitch became controversial when plate umpire Dan Iassogna ruled that it clipped him on the hand. For whatever reason, Girardi didn't challenge the call. The manager already had been successful earlier by getting a key forceout on an overturned call to kill the Indians' first-inning rally and the Yankees' video staff is usually pretty sharp with such things.
But not this time. They didn't challenge, and though the TV replay did not look obvious on review, it was certainly worth a shot anyway by MLB's central office. So with Chisenhall loading the bases, Girardi stuck with Green against Francisco Lindor, who drilled the second pitch off the right-field foul pole for a grand slam that pulled the Indians to within 8-7. With Robertson already warming, that may have been a better spot for him, but his reckoning would come later. No one was safe on this night.
After the Lindor slam, Roberton whiffed Jason Kipnis and struck out three straight in retiring all four Indians heading into the eighth. Then it was decision time again. Aroldis Chapman had been warming since the sixth _ which seemed odd in itself _ and with Bruce leading off the eighth, that appeared to be an ideal spot for Chapman.
Bruce was coming off a monster Game 1, with a pair of hits, three RBIs and a two-run homer, so this was a very dangerous hombre. But rather than use Chapman for the six-out save, Girardi rolled the dice with Robertson, who threw four breaking pitches before Bruce hammered a 92-mph fastball into the leftfield bleachers to tie the score at 8.
Chapman wound up being used for six outs anyway in the 13-inning loss and didn't allow a run. He just entered in the ninth, one inning too late.
