All respect to Ed, who's ready to turn the page, but it's taken me all morning to put my finger on why I'm not ready yet.
Last night sucked.
It's not because we lost our 8th straight to the Red Sox.
Not because Mike Mussina remains the last Yankee to beat the Red Sox.
Not because we blew an 8th inning lead with Mariano Rivera sitting on his 15 million dollar thumbs.
Last night sucked because it's the first time that I've watched Joe G. manage a game and had a Torre flashback.
Last night, there was nobody in the bullpen that Joe G. trusted with a 1 run lead between CC Sabathia and Mo. And rather than make a questionable choice in a winnable situation, Joe G. chose to make the wrong choice until the situation became unwinnable.
CC took the mound in the 8th having thrown over 100 pitches. Is a gassed Sabathia really better than any one else on the roster? That's the kind of thinking that put the Yanks back in Game 7 in 2003. Is Sabthia's 111th pitch better than Aceves 1st? As manager, you have to give your guys a chance to win, and a bases loaded jam with no outs in the 8th inning at Fenway is not that chance.
If CC takes the hill in the 8th, he has to go batter to batter. I understand if Hughes was not available to pitch consecutive days, but Dave Robertson, Brett Tomko and Jose Veras hadn't pitched since Tuesday. But wouldn't any of those guys have a better chance to keep a guy from scoring from first, rather than Aceves with the bases loaded?
This is the kind of garbage that got Joe Torre fired.
So now the front office has a dilemma. Do you stand pat, leave Joe G. with the bullpen he has, knowing that he's likely to mismanage another game because of it? Or do you trade away assets to give him the bullpen arm he thinks he needs?
Toss the imminent return of Brian Bruney into the discussion, and this becomes quite a quandary.
If you were GM, what would you do?