Of course, it's very easy to Friday-morning quarterback the decisions made by Girardi here - who comes out of the bullpen, when you pull Sabathia, etc. And lord knows callers to WFAN will all be spouting their opinions on it all day long, interspersed with Mike Francesa's inane ramblings of Boston's undeniable "confidence" and "swaggar" against the Yankees. Anyway, here's my take on what should have happened in the 8th (and I said this at the time, too, not just after the negative (for the Yankees) result occured):
Once the first two men were on base with nobody out, the leverage index (LI) of the at-bat was 4.28. LI is basically a measure of how "important" an at-bat is - how much will the expected outcome of the game change based on what happens in this at-bat (if the score is 10-0 in the 9th inning, this is very low leverage, because no matter what happens, it probably won't change the overall outcome of the game). An average at-bat has an LI of 1.00, so this at-bat was over 4 times more "important" than average (after Drew's single the LI was 4.50, then to 4.33 after the score was tied). The point is, the Yankees REALLY needed outs in that situation.
(See those high bars in the lower part of the graph in the 8th inning? That's Leverage Index.)Common baseball wisdom is that you bring in your closer (who is presumably the best relief pitcher; it certainly is the case for the Yankees) in the 9th inning to protect leads of 1-3 runs, because in those situations the closer earns a save (or more accurately, "save"). I believe that you use your best bullpen pitcher in the highest leverage situations; these are the situations where you really need an out. 0 out and 2 on in the 8th inning has a higher LI than bases empty in the 9th. So at this point, Girardi should have brought in Mariano Rivera to try to get out of the 8th inning with the lead, and then have some other pitcher (Aceves, Coke, or a combination) pitch the 9th. With a tiring starting pitcher, you gave up a 3-1 lead with your best pitcher sitting on the bench, because it wasn't yet conventioanlly-appropriate to bring in a closer. [Occassionally pitchers will be used for 4 or 5 out saves, and VERY rarely 6 outs, but for the most part (and especially early in the year), this extremely atypical.] Commonly-held baseball wisdom (and the idiotic "save" statistic) contributed to the Yankees loss last night, because the manager was using out-of-date tactics on how to employ a major league bullpen.
The downside, of course, is that if Rivera DOES manage to get out of the inning with the lead intact (and let's assume he is unavailable to come back in the 9th), you will have lesser pitchers trying to get the final 3 outs and record the save. And if they fail at that, Girardi will be the one who is criticized, since he bucked the trend and used his closer in the 8th inning. So it really isn't in his own personal interest to do so, from the perspective of the media attention he will recieve: if Rivera pitches out of the jam, Rivera will get the credit; if he doesn't, Girardi will get the blame (these perverse incentives facing managers are similar to the points made about NFL coaches not going for it enough on 4th down). But if teams want to win more games, they should become much more creative about how they use their best bullpen arms. It might mean an extra couple of wins per season, which can make the difference in making the playoffs or not. Bringing in your best pitcher to get out of jams in the 8th inning (or the 7th or possibly even 6th) will cost your closer saves, but win more games for your team. Owners of fantasy teams with that closer won't like it, but hopefully that is not part of the decision-making process for MLB managers. It seems quite obvious to me that blowing leads in high leverage situations with your best pitchers on the bench is sub-optimal managing. The rule for bringing in closers should not be "save situation", but rather "extremely high leverage".
[Addendum: This situation is of course tailor-made for the "Joba to the bullpen" contingent, and although I disagree with that sentiment I see how this game makes people feel that way. But the above discussion is about in-game strategy, not personnel decisions. Even if you have Joba/Bruney available in the bullpen, the point still stands that you want the best pitchers throwing the highest-leverage at-bats late in games.]
