Tao of Pauly

More Game 2 Thoughts

Read baseball blogger (and Tao of Poker reader) Aaron Gleeman's Baseball Blog for a great write up on last night's game. He made a great point:

There will no doubt be a lot of people who find fault with Ron Gardenhire sending Nathan back out to pitch the 12th inning, but I'm not one of them. While the complaints may center on Gardenhire letting Nathan pitch to Alex Rodriguez, that's simply more second-guessing and after-the-fact opinion forming than even I'm comfortable with. As far as I'm concerned, the only real decision for Gardenhire came before the start of the inning.

Coming into the 12th, Nathan had thrown 32 pitches without giving up a hit, while striking out the last two batters he faced in the 11th. While asking him to begin an inning with 32 pitches is certainly not a situation Nathan has been in very often, he was pitching very well, it's not an outlandish number of pitches, and it's a decision I have no problem with. If you want to disagree with that move, that's one thing, but once you send Nathan out to begin the 12th and he pitches to the leadoff man, John Olerud, you're pretty much stuck with him whether he struggles or not....

Aaron's a Twins fan so read his perspective. If you don't know, his basbeall blog was mentioned in Sports Illustrated. Thanks for the link up!

I forgot to say that Flash Gordon picthed subpar and Torre rushed Mo Rivera out there in the 8th inning. Perhaps that was the reason he was a little off. He wasn't quite ready yet and needed a few more minutes to warm up. Tanyon Sturtze pitched great (except the HR to Hunter) in extra innings and he looks like the best arm not named Rivera in the Yanks bullpen. He's been impressive the last two weeks. They are going to need him the next few days.