Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 26, 2003
Torre's Managing

Scott writes:


I think there's another rather large error you can point to with Torre. He sent his team out there last night with no plan at all for winning the game. Right there, in the first inning, we saw Jeter and Nick Johnson hacking away. You've got a pitcher on three days rest, and you don't instruct your hitters to take a pitch now and then? I wouldn't be that upset about this if it weren't exactly the way the Yankees won their other recent championships. Who was the manager then? Oh yeah! It was Joe.

Interestingly, Beckett thought the Yankees were more patient last night:

Guess what? Beckett said he actually felt the Yankees were more patient against him last night than they were in Game 3, but he adjusted by mixing in more off-speed pitches and making several hitters look befuddled. Derek Jeter, who had the only three hits off Beckett in his last start, was 0 for 4, stranded three runners and made an error that led to Florida's second run. The player Luis Sojo called "the real Mr. October" played like it was a meaningless month.

It looked to me like Beckett was setting up his fastball with the changeup, instead of the other way around. As for Torre, yes, he should have had a meeting before the game where he said, "Everyone is going to take the first pitch." But Beckett was throwing so well last night, those pitches probably would have gone for strikes anyway. Posada had a great AB last night, described here. He got the count to 3-2, then Beckett threw an inside pitch. Posada took it, and the pitch just caught the inside corner for strike three. When a pitcher is hitting the corners and changing speeds, I'm not sure there is any other approach except to wait for him to make a mistake.


Posted by David Pinto at 03:27 PM | World Series | TrackBack (0)