Joe’s blind spot
A great strength for Girardi undermines his glaring weakness
Joe Girardi is not a bad manager, but he has his weaknesses, and his inability to adapt to the flow of the game was on display in Game 2.
JOE Girardi is a good major league manager.
I realize that is not a popular sentiment in town, particularly in this moment. I also know short of Bill Belichick, Gregg Popovich and Terry Francona — and maybe not even them in these ungrateful times — pretty much every fan base hates its coach/manager and thinks the always available “Anyone Else” would do better.
The debacle Friday night, however, exposed a Girardi weakness that needs further addressing by his bosses even after 10 years in this job, and particularly if they plan to re-up Girardi for more with his contract expiring in a few weeks.
He is a hardworking, studious man and nothing for which he has prepared will unhinge him. Girardi maps out probable scenarios at 2 p.m. and in many ways already has managed a game yet to begin.
But if the game goes off script, Girardi’s penchant is to tighten up, display every facial tell of a man being swamped by tension. He is not blessed with Second City adlib dexterity — nor a poker face.
Girardi reminds me of a guy who will diligently learn a waltz for his wedding day and perform it with workman-like efficiency. But if the electronica breaks out, well, he will be unable to adapt, go with the flow, feel the moment.
Game 2 of this AL Division Series was a referendum on this. Girardi took out CC Sabathia because that is what the pregame plan was, damn that he was at 77 pitches, doing well and more likely to be a runway model than be overwhelmed by the moment.
He stuck with Chad Green despite overt signs that it was not the young righty’s night, because a season of information about Green’s excellence outweighed what was occurring 100 feet from Girardi’s vantage point. This was the kind of decision you make in June when preservation and stoking confidence are at least as vital as any sequence in a game. But in October, different dance steps are needed. Only what is occurring right then matters.
Girardi let a clearly struggling Green face Francisco Lindor with the bases loaded because he said he liked his history against the brilliant shortstop. That history was two strikeouts in two at-bats in August — which, compared to how Green looked Friday night, was as relevant as the color of his socks.
And, of course, before Girardi allowed Green to face Lindor, he made his most fateful choice of the night, one sure to affix his managerial career now with at least as much resonance as the Yankees’ 2009 World Series title.
Girardi did not challenge an 0-2 pitch to Lonnie Chisenhall that grazed something and redirected into Gary Sanchez’s mitt.
The Yankees have, by far, the greatest percentage success of any team in the replay era. That is be- cause Girardi entrusts a strong replay system and doesn’t bother with less than sure things. But this called for a quarterback who could read what was in front of him and audible to a better play.
Thirty seconds came and went without a clear indication yet that the ball had hit the knob of Chisenhall’s bat and, thus, should have been an inning-ending strike 3 since Sanchez caught it. After a half minute, Girardi informed the umps to play on, later explaining, “Being a catcher, my thought is I never want to break a pitcher’s rhythm. That’s how I think about it.”
That is drivel. All there are in a 2017 baseball game are delays, including how often the Girardi-tutored Yankees catchers slow things down to visit the mound.
But if Girardi wants to play the “being a catcher card,” OK, well his catcher — who was the closest Yankees employee to the play, literally inches away, was telling his manager to challenge.
“Being a catcher,” Girardi should have listened to Sanchez. Imagine how he would have felt in a similar situation 20 years ago if Joe Torre didn’t listen to him.
But there was more here as well: Chisenhall did not react in the familiar way a player does when he gets hit by a pitch. Plus, Girardi had two challenges left, it was already the sixth inning, the Indians’ best opportunity to collapse an 8-3 deficit was ongoing and beginning in the eighth the umps could review a questionable play even if Girardi had flushed all his challenges.
Thus, saving a challenge there — even if it turns out Girardi is covering for an underling who messed up and initially said the replay showed hit-by-pitch — was wrongheaded. Girardi had nothing to lose and everything to gain by challenging.
But that would have necessitated an off-script appreciation of all the factors, many of which are near impossible to contemplate at 2 p.m.
It is because of this that I also blame Girardi’s coaching staff.
Weekly, we can watch NFL games and it is mind boggling to see the mismanagement of the clock and timeouts. Coaches lose their bearings to the speed of action, variety of possibilities and their own inability to reason clearly in a tense environment. I
am forever thinking: Where is an assistant coach screaming, “Call a timeout, moron.”
I wondered the same Friday night. Where was a bench coach or pitching coach or any coach to point out to Girardi why all the variables blared to challenge? Is this about weak coaching? Is it about an atmosphere Girardi has created in which his idea of chain of command would not tolerate such real-time insistence?
How about a coach just beseeching Girardi not to say anything to the umps, make them decide when to resume play as a stall for the Yankees replay reviewer to get the super slow-mo that would clearly reveal that the ball hit the knob of Chisenhall’s bat?
This is part of the gig of being a manager — outsized responsibility when things go wrong. But Green could have gotten Yan Gomes out before Chisenhall and Lindor after rather than serving up a game-altering grand slam. Todd Frazier made two errors, David Robertson yielded a tying homer to Jay Bruce, Ronald Torreyes was unforgivably picked off second with no outs in the 11th inning, and the Yankees’ offense went scoreless for the final eight innings of a 9-8, 13-inning loss that gave the Indians a two-games-to-none lead.
That the weight all fell on Girardi underscores the focus on a manager and that technology has made the weight heavier. From the beginning of the majors until three years ago, it would have been home plate ump Dan Iassogna who was excoriated after the game for blowing the call — and I have no doubt Girardi would have led that charge. But the replay system provided cover for the ump and shifted responsibility to Girardi.
Look, this happens to good managers, the inability to appreciate the postseason moment and, instead, follow a preconceived plan into infamy. There are few in-game managers I respect more than Buck Showalter. Yet, in 1995 I watched him continue to not trust an effective young reliever named Mariano Rivera, his lone bullpen piece capable of handling a frightening Mariners lineup. And last postseason Showalter lost an 11-inning wild-card game while never getting Zach Britton to the mound. Both times he was victim to decisions he made before the game.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon decided before World Series Game 6 last year that he would go to Aroldis Chapman early and stick with him to the end. He ignored that the game became a blowout, overworked Chapman to the end, and that nearly cost his team a championship the next night.
Good managers mess up, especially when not fully absorbing that the urgency of October dictates a greater fluidity in decision making. Girardi is often lampooned for having his nose in a scouting binder. But that preparedness is a strength in the regular season and as an initial guide in the postseason. All you can ask a manager, whether his strategy succeeds or fails, is to explain sound reasoning for that choice. Girardi has that and when he can pre-plan, his logic is sound.
He had plotted for what happens if Luis Severino got knocked out early of the wild-card game, which enabled Girardi to deftly orchestrate 26 outs from his pen. But that was imaginable, something that could be worked out five hours before a game.
What occurred in the sixth inning Friday could not be rehearsed, could not be quantified and tucked into a binder. It demanded calm in the storm, the improvisational skill to work the time of year and in-the-moment factors into the equation.
And despite being a very good major league manager, these talents for adaptability under pressure continue to evade Joe Girardi.