Maybe Steinbrenner isn't so crazy after all.

A few days ago, Joe Torre was telling us that these games are "precious" and that he was looking for his team to win seven or eight in a row.

Then, he puts in Alan Embree against Paul Konerko in the ninth inning of a one-run game. Even Jim Kaat was, ummm, "surprised."

Why would Torre do it?

Maybe Torre was trying to "do some things" or maybe he had "seen some things" from Embree in the 8th inning that he "liked."

Besides, if it was not for that one pitch to Konerko, it was actually a good job by Embree. He was just one strike away.

So, why did Torre do it? Is there any possible rationale?


As a counter-example, I noticed that White Sox avoided their closer until there were two outs in he ninth. Cliff Politte started the ninth inning and was greeted Impolittely by ARod (get it?). Then, Damaso Marte got two outs before Guillen used Hermanson for the final out.

There may be some logical reasons for this approach. Guillen has a 45-game lead and has an eye on the playoffs. He may need to see how Politte and Marte can handle pressure situations. He may want to hide Hermanson from the Yankees until the playoffs. (Ha ha ha! I just said "Yankees" and "playoffs" in the same sentence.)

But Guillen can afford to play games like this. Torre can not afford to do it anymore. The Yankees are going to continue to slide in the AL East and wild card standings while Torre is more concerned with building Embree's confidence or making Womack feel like he's part of the team.


So, why is Embree facing Konerko in the ninth inning? Is Torre seriously basing his decision on five at-bats?:

Said Torre: "We looked at the numbers on that one." ... Against Embree, [Konerko] was hitting .200 based on a small sample, one hit in five at-bats. But that hit was a two-run homer.

Torre just might be stupider than I thought ... and I thought he was really stupid.

He's got fresh Gordon and fresh Mariano coming off a seven-pitch save. If you want to "look at some numbers," let's look at the guy with the ERA under 1.00.


The good news is that now that Konerko is 2-for-6 ( a whopping .333) vs. Embree, with two homeruns. Next time Torre is faced with the same situation, he will probably "look at the numbers" and decide to go with Mariano instead.