Rob:
Brian Anderson deserved a better fate than to be saddled with the loss Tuesday. I’ve been a big fan of his for several years, not because he’s a great pitcher, but because he has one of the most unique profiles in the game. His philosophy is not to overwhelm you with stuff but simply to throw strikes and to not worry about the occasional solo homer. For his career he’s given up 174 homers but just 205 walks—the highest ratio in baseball history. Tuesday, he gave up a homer—with the bases empty—to Jorge Posada, but that was the only run that scored while he was in the game.
He had to be on, too, because Roger Clemens was nails, perhaps his best performance ever in a game of this magnitude, where losing meant the season was (essentially) over. He didn’t have his rhythm yet in the first, but the Diamondbacks helped out by having simultaneous batters get picked off at first and caught trying to steal second. Try as I might, though, I can’t find fault with Brenly for that. Clemens allowed 34 steals in 40 attempts this year and was supposed to have a gimpy groin on top of that. Give the Yankees credit for allowing that misperception to linger, as it may have worked to their advantage.
If there’s one decision that you could argue cost the Diamondbacks the game, it was Brenly’s decision to bring in Mike Morgan to relieve Anderson in the sixth. I mean, Morgan is a great story, and it was very thoughtful of Brenly to let him pitch in Game 1—with an eight-run lead, mind you. But this was a one-run game, and there’s no way on earth I bring in a 42-year-old pitcher who hasn’t had an ERA under 4 since 1995 to get out of the jam.
Even so, Morgan pitched very well, and only a broken-bat bloop single by Brosius brought in the eventual winning run. And the Diamondbacks’ bullpen, aside from Byung-Hyun Kim, is almost comically thin. Bobby Witt? Albie Lopez? You could almost exonerate Brenly for bringing Morgan in—except that immediately thereafter, he got Miguel Batista up in the bullpen, ending the ruse of having him start Game 4. If you’re going to have Batista warm up, why not bring him in when he’s clearly the best middle-relief option on the team?
In the end, it probably didn’t matter. Clemens was essentially unhittable, and Rivera literally so. The Yankees’ formula has been repeated so much—with so few variations on a theme—it has truly become monotonous.
