For this development, you can't blame Molina, who is doing his best."
That's kind of presumptuous, but nobody questioned his effort, just his ability.
I see no reason to pick Molina over Cervelli for backup catcher.
"You can't blame Jorge Posada, who has worked hard all season to climb on the same page with A.J. Burnett."
Again, somewhat presumptuous, but it's not even worth discussing.
I could call a big-league ballgame for A.J. Burnett: "Stop walking people, you tattooed, overrated, overpaid piece of garbage."
"You can't blame Joe Girardi at this late stage. He is simply trying to coax a decent playoff start out of his No. 2 pitcher, hoping to make Burnett more comfortable."
Of course Girardi deserves the blame.
For the sake of argument, let's just say that Burnett has trouble communicating with Posada. Once Girardi is aware of this, then one of the priorities for the rest of the season is to improve communication between Burnett and Posada. Molina should have never caught Burnett again.
Because the playoffs are coming and it's important for Posada to catch when Burnett is pitching.
Because you don't want to play the catcher with the .268 slugging percentage.
3 comments:
So Cervelli is on the playoff roster, too?
So the Yankees have three catchers?
I must amend my earlier post where I criticized the guy who said Girardi was one of the Yankees' top three problems.
Cervelli > Molina
But in defense of Girardi, he did state earlier this year that he did not want to get caught up in the game of assigning pitchers "personal catchers." He vehemently stated he wouldn't do so and only after trying to have Posada catch AJ more times to see more success with Molina did he make this choice for the playoffs.
I would've picked Cervelli, though.
The numbers suggest quite strongly that Burnett's schizo routine is random rather than based on the Yankee catcher.
Molina's role on this team is to rest Posada every fifth day or so to ensure that Posada is fresh for the playoffs. Molina should have caught Mitre.
There were some factors that tied Girardi's hands: Posada's suspension, Burnett's family emergency, etc. But it's also quite clear that Girardi foolishly bought into this notion of a battery rhythm.
Most of all, I'm somewhat alarmed (and offended?) by the notion that it doesn't matter. The notion that the Yankees still should beat the Twins even if Molina goes 0-for-4; that eight good batters + Burnett should be enough to win; that that Yankees can beat the Twins at 90% efficiency; that Girardi has already announced Gaudin as the Game Four starter of the ALCS.
Having said all that, I'm also quite sure that Molina gets a HR and 4 RBIs in Wednesday's game.
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