Going into the seventh inning, I was stoked. The Yankees had a 6-2 lead. They had a good chance to actually win a series against the Blue Jays with Roy Halladay on the mound in the third game.
Then all of a sudden a Robinson Cano botched double play and Darrell Rasner’s meltdown in one inning doomed the Yankees. Up to that point, Rasner had been good, allowing only two runs. The offense was actually producing. Cano and I-Rod hit back-to-back homers in the fourth inning and Matsui hit a two-RBI double in the sixth. Even A-Rod had a RBI.
Then the bullpen faltered after Rasner left. Brian Bruney let two of his runners score and Damso Marte, Edwar Ramirez both allowed hits. Jose Veras came in and finished the game.The Yankees have overworked the bullpen due to repeated injuries and ineffective starting pitching. I’m not too impressed with Joe Girardi’s in-game management. In hindsight, he did the right thing letting Rasner pitch in the seventh inning, but who would have known that Cano would botch a play, leading to two runs scored, and who knew that the bullpen would screw up? Some people blame Girardi too much.
It was the players. You cannot blame A-Rod all the time. He’s the highest-paid player in the game and the one who gets the most scrutiny because of where he is. Blame Cano for his error. Blame the bullpen for giving up a four-run Yankee lead in two innings.
The simple thing to do is blame individuals. The harder thing to do is to blame the team. For today’s loss, the entire team should get the blame. They did not finish the game and this has been a recurring issue all year.
