I hate to relive last night’s game. I really do. But after posing this question last night, Joe Torre has forced my hand yet again.
After the Scott Proctor debacle ended, our man on the street, Peter Abraham, posted his usual postgame wrap-up complete with audio from the Yankee skipper. Abraham, taking a cue from common sense, asked Torre if he considered using Rivera in a tie game on the road. (Oh, the horrors!)
Here is Joe Torre’s answer from the audio clip on Abraham’s site:
He pitched in the 8th and 9th just a couple of days ago on Saturday and I wasn’t ready to bring him in at that point.
Got that? Joe Torre, Yankee manager, thinks that Rivera threw too many innings on Saturday and couldn’t be used in the 9th inning of a tie game the Yanks should have won. Well, as any Yankee fan knows, Mariano Rivera didn’t pitch on Saturday. That was the other game this week the Yanks lost in a final at-bat with Rivera in the pen.
No, Joe, Rivera pitched last on Friday when he threw a whopping 20 pitches in 1.2 innings. Funny enough, those are the only 1.2 innings Rivera has thrown since June 16, a span of ten days.
There you have it. The Yankees manager doesn’t know when he uses his relievers, and he thinks that his closer can’t handle more than 1.2 innings over a ten-day span. So either Rivera is hurt and can’t pitch too much or Joe is completely clueless as Rob Neyer intimates today. I know which one I’m picking.