Two things are abundantly clear from the outcome of the Yankees/A's game in which the A's rallied to beat the Yankees 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth. The first thing that is clear is that by the Fan's count, Joe Torre has lost three games for the Yankees by over-managing. Andy Pettitte had totally shut the A's down for eight innings, giving up only one hit and no runs. He had thrown 116 pitches, which isn't much for him. Pettitte walked the first batter in the ninth and before you could say, "Torre, sit down," Pettitte was out of the game and Rivera was in.

Pettitte had only given up one hit all game. One. Any other manager would have left him in there. Instead, Torre brought in Rivera. As mentioned in these archives before, most of Rivera's blown saves have come when he did not start the inning and there's a runner on base. For some reason, Rivera does not do well in those situations. His earned run average is double with men on base and here is one more stat to use as an example: Rivera has struck out 25 batters in 21+ innings with the bases empty. He has only struck out 14 batters in 23+ innings with runners on base.

Sure enough, two hits later, he blew the save. The first hit was by Eric Chavez who is batting .208 against lefties. Wouldn't Pettitte have had a better chance against Chavez? The bottom line here is that a pitcher who pitches that well deserves to finish the game and Torre hit the panic button and in this writer's opinion, lost the game.

The second thing that is terribly clear is that Rivera, at this point in his career, needs a second pitch. For all the years he was the best closer in the game, he was throwing that cutter at 95 to 97 MPH. Now he is throwing it 91 to 94 MPH. That is all the difference in the world. It's still an effective pitch, but you don't see him putting guys away and breaking as many bats. His earned run average (ERA) is terrific as is his walks and hits per inning. Rivera doesn't feel invincible any more and he needs another mean pitch to compliment the cutter.


O! Baseball fans! Glory in watching three of the best sluggers of all time tonight do what they have done for so long. Barry Bonds opened the floodgate for the Giants' offense by hitting a two run single with the bases loaded. The two RBI were numbers 1722 and 1723. Sammy Sosa won the Cubs game with homerun number 522. Sosa has hit fourteen homers since July 1 to lead the league in that category. And finally, Rafael Palmeiro hit homerun number 517 and added to his 1650 RBI. To borrow a phrase from the PGA commercials: "These guys are good."


I read today with interest how umpire Tim Welke admitted that he blew the call that cost the Rockies their game the other night. First, it is admirable that Welke was man enough to admit the mistake. But the Rockies are justified when watching the replay in asking how Welke could have gotten it wrong in the first place. Umpiring across the majors has been terribly spotty and the fans are getting restless about it. Here are a couple of examples:

- Several times this year, pitchers have been tossed out of games after beanball warnings even though the pitches they threw to hit the batters were curve balls and change-ups. Come on people! Can't a MLB umpire recognize a curveball?
- The game tonight between the Giants and Reds was blown open because the home plate umpire didn't give the Reds' pitcher, Jimmy Haynes, a third call strike that was clearly in the strike zone.
- Too many confrontations between the ump and a player or manager has been provoked and prolonged by the umpire. I have hated that for years and it should NEVER happen.
- And of course, the strike zone has been a mess all year. There has been no rhyme or reason for the lack of integrity of the major league strike zone.