The Genius Maker 5-9-12

I stated more than a few times whoever is the next closer after Rivera will not be liked.  I think Robertson will be fine, but tonight (after 25 pitches last night) did not work out well…and I like Robertson so maybe those were words were harsh?

I didn’t like starting Rodriguez off with a fastball and said so before the AB, but outside of that he only made one mistake and that was throwing a fastball to Joyce.  There is a reason why we were throwing 4 curve balls to him and he barely got a piece of one of them.  They should have thrown another one…nope fastball and 3 run homer and end of game.  It is the same when teams throw Swisher a fastball after he has shown he struggled against the off speed stuff.  Make him beat what he struggles with. 

Speaking of Swisher he should be fined for an idiotic throw that really screwed up the 9^th inning.  On the 2^nd single he threw a rainbow to 3^rd base when he had no chance of getting the runner and he allowed the go ahead run to get to 2^nd base and really put the pressure on Robertson.  There is really no excuse for that!

Girardi had a good game with pitchers as I thought he did a great job pulling Phelps with the bases loaded and brought in Logan to stop the threat and then he went to Wade at the right time and Wade pitched great.  I would have used Rapada for the last out against Pena, but with nobody on Girardi let Pena get an AB against a righty and wade got him out. 

Girardi did mess up with Martin up in the 2^nd inning with 1^st and 2^nd and nobody out.  Martin is probably the worst hitter in our lineup and their starter had just walked Ibanez.  After falling behind 2-0 if he wasn’t going to bunt he should have demanded a take sign, but instead Martin swung at ball 3.  After grounding out into what should have been a DP (TB messed it up) we didn’t do anything.  A bunt was the play there and I have no idea why Girardi didn’t do it.

While on bunting, the Yanks need to do that more when TB gives us the free one.  Swisher was up with ARod on 3^rd and 2 outs.  The 3^rd baseman was playing SS and Swisher can bunt; he should have put it down and gotten a run in.

We need to throw away our scouting report on Zobrist because he was hitting under .200 against the league coming into these two games and he seems like he is hitting everything we give him now.

In the 8^th inning Cano made a big error that could have hurt us bad as he pulled Jeter off the bag, but Soriano pitched his way out of it.  Tex made a great throw on a rocket short hop play he made and got the force out at 2^nd base making it 1^st and 3^rd with 2 outs.  It ended up not making a difference, but it was a very heads up play because it kept the go ahead run off of 2^nd.  The play itself wasn’t as good as the announcers said because it was almost a catch, but the ball was a rocket and he made a perfect throw to get the force out (it had risk to it).  Contrast the heads up play to the bonehead one by Swisher in the 9^th.

In the 9^th Martin blocked a ball in the dirt and got it with his arm but he still didn’t turn his chest protector in; he made the good block, but also got lucky.  He needs to adjust his form on those or we will have more trouble.

Disappointed in the outcome as I would have been thrilled if Robertson could have closed 2 one run games out against TB.