JOE’S QUICK HOOK DOOMS BOMBERS
Yankees catcher Russell Martin sees Boone Logan’s offering skip underneath him for wild pitch with Denard Span at plate, scoring run that opens gate for
MINNEAPOLIS — In a month full of close games, the bullpen has been more crucial than ever for the Yankees, and for the most part, Joe Girardi has been typically aggressive in getting the best out of it. But Tuesday night he was too quick with the trigger and it cost him.
You can argue that bringing in Boone Logan to face Denard Span with the bases loaded in the seventh inning was the book move — lefty vs. lefty and all that.
However, Phil Hughes was pitching a gem, and bases loaded or not, “he still had good stuff,” catcher Russell Martin said afterward, when Girardi gave him the hook.
At the time he was leading 3-1, his pitch count was at 99 and he’d just struck out Pedro Florimon for the second out of the inning. No wonder he was doing his best, after the 5-4 loss to the Twins, not to let his anger spill out publicly.
Besides the fact that Hughes deserved the chance to pitch to Span, the bigger issue is the workload on the bullpen. At some point there’s a price to pay for pushing relievers to the limit, and this may have been a case in point.
Logan admitted he didn’t have his good slider on this night. He wouldn’t admit to any fatigue, but the lefty reliever was making his 10th appearance in 12 days, in- cluding two in one day during last Wednesday’s doubleheader.
For that matter, he leads the American League with 77 appearances, so it’s certainly possible his lazy slider Tuesday night was the result of all the recent work.
“I would say that’s a fair assessment,” Martin said. “We need a couple of blowouts so we can get our guys some rest. We’re getting to that time in the season when everybody in the league is feeling it, but especially guys like Boone who have thrown a tremendous amount.
“They can definitely use a couple of days where we score more than enough runs.”
That’s another issue for the Yankees, especially with Alex Rodriguez going through another power drought these days, but in any case, the Yankees missed a chance to put more distance between themselves and the Orioles. They still lead the AL East by 1½ games, but this loss had to sting.
Perhaps most significantly, the bullpen, which has been such a strength all season, is becoming an issue lately for the Yankees.
Closer Rafael Soriano gave up a game-tying home run last Friday night, two days after he too was used twice in that Wednesday doubleheader. Girardi mentioned the possibility of a “dead arm,” and even though Soriano warmed up Monday night, he hasn’t been used since then.
And then there’s David Robertson, the primary set-up man. He had a stretch of eight appearances in 11 games before a couple of days off over the weekend, and when he pitched again Monday night, he was hitting only 91 mph on the radar gun.
Girardi said he’s not concerned about Robertson, and had him warming up Tuesday night in case the Yankees rallied to take the lead in the eighth inning. But the truth is that Robertson, a strikeout machine in 2011 and the early part of 2012, hasn’t been as dominant since missing a month with an oblique injury in May.
And in September he’s had some rocky outings. In 14 appearances over the last four weeks, in fact, he has a 5.40 ERA, and oppo-
nents are hitting .320 against him.
Robertson said he has had to change his style, saying that he was never able to find his dominant form after the oblique injury.
“I sat for 30 days, which is tough to do,” Robertson said. “I came back, got a few outings under my belt, I was about to get my feel right, and I had to battle through some outings.
“Last year I had a lot of tough outings too but I was able to escape them with strikeouts. This year it’s not the same.”
Robertson thinks hitters are more familiar with him now, explaining why they haven’t chased his high fastball as much this season, but an AL scout said it’s because “his fastball doesn’t explode like it did.”
Whatever the reason, Robertson’s walks are down but so are his strikeouts. And he’s giving up 8.1 hits per nine innings, compared to 5.4 a year ago.
All of this is difficult on Girardi, who is trying to win close game after close game in a tight pennant race without burning out his bullpen. His use of the pen has always been one of his strengths, but he’s never been in the position he’s in now.
Suffice to say he needs to resist temptation occasionally, especially when his starter is on his game. Tuesday was the perfect opportunity, yet Girardi couldn’t do it.