By the 12th inning, a game can turn into a crapshoot of who’s available and who’s lucky. In this case, it was the Yankees who were lucky to have the middle of their order coming up against Matt Guerrier, who has given up 12 runs on 16 hits in his last six innings of work. Obviously, something ain’t right with Guerrier, who had logged more innings at this point last season (65 vs. 61 2/3) and was allowing less than one runner per inning in ‘07. So it’s not overuse.

Because Nick Blackburn scuffled through 4 2/3 innings, Gardy needed to trot out every reliever this side of Brian Bass — eight pitchers in all, including Joe Nathan for four outs.

It was a shame to waste Delmon’s three-run homer off Mariano Rivera, which could have been one of those over and over and over again highlights if the Twins had continued their rally and won the game.

(Here’s Patrick’s column on the bullpen situation and lack of front office action.)

Otherwise, there’s little wisdom to offer. You can pull out moments that could have made a difference, but right now that feels a bit like pulling a couple of weeds from an untended lawn. The one that I keep thinking about is the Xavier Nady double with two outs in the fourth, on which speed-impaired Jason Giambi scored from first base when Gomez missed the cutoff man (Everett) and Punto short-hopped a throw that Redmond couldn’t handle. The rule, again, is to get the throw home on the fly or make it bounce so the catcher isn’t handcuffed.

That’s all for now. Day game today. I’ll be there, with a Gurahead for commenter ganderson.

Did anyone find the one that was left along I-35 Sunday, somewhere near the Iowa border?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 12:09 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.