Lupica's madness on display in real time.

Some lowlights of Mike Lupica's attempts to elucidate the ALDS.


Start with a gratuitous swipe at the MVP of the Americal League:

"The other day in the press box at Fenway Park, I asked four different beat writers for the Yankees who they wanted up at the plate with everything on the line.

Two said Gary Sheffield.

One said Matsui.

One said Jeter.

A-Rod didn’t get a call."

(Did you ask the beat writers after the game, where Jeter was 0-for-5 and Matsui and Sheffield combined to leave 40 runners on base?)


Since we all know Alex Rodriguez is the LVP, you know who's the hero? The backup first baseman who hit .241 and has a .239 career postseason batting average:

"Tino Martinez up now, two outs, two on in the second.

Tino is one of the great heroes of this season, it’s just that his heroics happened almost five months ago.

He didn’t save the season.

And all those home runs didn’t turn the season around, because the Yankees still didn’t start to get really jazzed until July.

But when they could have fallen completely out of things, and kept going the wrong way, Tino had that stretch where it seemed like he hit home run about every other inning.

Yankee fans will always wonder how things might have gone differently the last few years if Tino had never left."


After this pro-Tino warping of historical data, what follows next is a warping of the game you've been watchinn, right there in front of your own eyes, on your television.

It's a literary first. It's real-time revisionist history:

"Three years ago, the Yankees were cruising along in Game 2 of their division series against the Angels. El Duque is pitching brilliantly in relief, the Yankees are going to go ahead 2-0, and that will be that against the Angels.

Only Garret Anderson and Troy Glaus hit those home runs, and the Yankees lost the game and the series.

Last night, Juan Rivera’s home run got the Angels back into it.

Then came A-Rod’s error.

Then the Angels were ahead 4-2."

Three years ago, the Yankees were not "cruising." They held a one-run lead in the eighth inning. Torre made one of the worst bullpen decisions of his career. Not only did he leave El Duque in to give up a homerun to Troy Glaus, he left El Duque in to give up a homerun to Garret Anderson.

Nice matcup, Torre. El Duque vs. Garret Anderson, eighth inning, tie game, Mike Stanton and Mariano Rivera sitting on their hands.

The Angels "hit the homeruns," sure, but there's a little more to the story. It is a particularly curious decision, in retrospect, given Torres' current obsession with lefties out of the 'pen.


Speaking of which, let's please talk about eighth innings and analyze Joe Torre's ability to manage his bullpen.

I want to hear one person, anywhere, tell me why Al Leiter is pitching to Guerrero and Molina in the eighth. Waiting in the bullpen were Mariano Rivera, Tom Gordon, Tanyon Sturtze, Scott Proctor, Aaron Small, and Shawn Chacon. Have I forgotten anybody? Any of them are better choices than Leiter.

This is the eighth inning of a playoff game and the Yankees are only down by two runs. You hope against hope to hold them scoreless and then get the bloop and a blast in the ninth. With ARod batting fourth that inning, it's not all that inconceivable. He did hit 48 homeruns this season. It was the most homeruns by any player in the entire league! So, it's a lot of homeruns!

The only conclusion one can reach is that Torre had given up on this game and was looking ahead to game three. Congratulations, Joe. Once again, your bullpen is rested for the next game.
But it was nice to bring in Proctor after the Molina homerun.


Oh, and what actually happened in last night's game? According to Lupica, here's the game recap:

1. Yankees were winning by two runs.
2. Rivera hit a homerun.
3. ARod made an error.
4. The Angels won 5-3.

Dagnabit, that's quite an error. It was a four-run error. Nothing else happened in the whole game.

(1) ARod made an error, and (2) the Yankees lost. It's all ARod's fault.

It couldn't be Torre's fault. Why? Because Torre doesn't have a "seventh-inning guy," whatever that means:

"Maybe if Joe Torre has a 7th inning guy, the way he always had a 7th inning guy when he was winning the World Series, he brings him in now.

But in the 164th game, he still doesn’t have a 7th inning guy he trusts, so he stays with a tired Wang."

Are there actually people who can read this stuff without questioning it?

What the (heck) is a "seventh inning" guy? Is that a new type of pitcher?

Yes, you can use Gordon. You can use Rivera if you have to. It's, like, totally within the rules of major league baseball.

What is the crime? Who cares if it's the seventh inning instead of the eighth or ninth? Scioscia went straight to Shields in the sixth, with the game on the line.

I'm up until 1:15 in the morning watching my manager rest his bullpen in a playoff game.