World Series Prospectus: Game Two

Yankee fans are only now beginning to breathe normally again, after last
night’s ninth-inning rally by the Mets fell one run short.

For eight innings, Game Two was completely dominated by Roger
Clemens and the Yankees, but once Clemens left–after just 112
pitches–the Mets scored five runs off of Jeff Nelson and Mariano
Rivera before Kurt Abbott took a called strike three to end the
rally.

This was that rare situation where a manager may have been a bit too
conservative with his pitcher’s arm. Joe Torre has pretty much committed to
using a four-man rotation in Game Two, so Clemens isn’t going to
come back on short rest in Game Five. He was pitching this game on a week’s
rest and hadn’t shown any signs of tiring in the eighth inning.

Additionally, Torre had been forced to use his three good relievers,
including ace Rivera, for a total of 5 1/3 innings the previous night.
Allowing Clemens to finish the game, or at least start the ninth inning,
would have given him the opportunity to give the core of his bullpen the
night off.

What’s more puzzling is that once Torre removed Clemens, he went to Jeff
Nelson. The Yankees were up 6-0 in the ninth inning; if Jason
Grimsley isn’t going to pitch in that situation (or, for that matter,
Dwight Gooden or David Cone), when is he going to be used? Is
Torre really carrying three pitchers who will only pitch in losses or
13-inning games?

As you saw, Nelson was ineffective, giving up two singles and a home run,
which forced Torre to use Rivera. It was only the fourth time all season
Rivera had been asked to pitch on the day after throwing as many as the 34
pitches he’d tossed in Game One. Rivera struggled, giving up another near
home run to Todd Zeile, as well a a real one to Jay Payton
before finally closing the door.

Close the door he did, though, and now the Yankees have another 2-0 World
Series lead.

In what must have been an effort to keep the audience, Tim McCarver
mentioned that the Yankees had been in a similar situation to the Mets in
1996, down 0-2 in that World Series, before going to win the next four
games. ‘Tis true, but the Yankees also had 2-0 leads in the 1998 and 1999
World Series, and went on to sweep both of those. I’m thinking those
are the more relevant data points here.

Game Two Notes

• We should never again have to hear about Roger Clemens’s inability to
  pitch in the postseason, I’d imagine. He followed up his ALCS one-hitter
  with eight innings of two-hit ball (an 87 game score). His World Series ERA
  is now 1.66 in four starts; the last two years, he’s allowed one run and
  six hits in 15 2/3 innings of World Series play.

• Using Lenny Harris as a designated hitter is a waste of
  everyone’s time. I’m fairly happy with the job Bobby Valentine is doing,
  but Harris didn’t even muster a 700 OPS in 2000. Of the available
  options–Darryl Hamilton, Bubba Trammell, Todd Pratt,
  Ed Kranepool–Harris was probably the worst. Letting Mike
  Hampton bat would have been a better idea.

• Valentine also should have called back Kurt Abbott with two outs in the
  ninth inning. I know he was saving Trammell to hit for Timoniel
  Perez, but you have to get to Perez. If Trammell reaches without
  tying the game, there’s still Pratt and Matt Franco available to hit
  for Perez.

  Then again, if you have to hit for your leadoff hitter in an important spot
  when he would be batting with the platoon advantage, that probably tells
  you something about said leadoff hitter.

• After all the questionable baserunning decisions we’ve seen so far this
  postseason, it was nice to see the Mets be appropriately aggressive in the
  ninth inning last night. With second and third, one out and the Mets down
  6-2 Robin Ventura broke for home on Lenny Harris’s ground ball to
  the mound. It’s the right play: the worst-case scenario is first and third,
  two outs, and there’s really no reason for the defense to do anything but
  concede the run.

  The bizarre thing was that Mariano Rivera elected to check the runner
  coming home, then try and make a play on Benny Agbayani
  going from second to third.
  Passing up the force at first base to go for a tag play with a
  four-run lead is a terrible call. It worked out, as Rivera made a
  good throw Derek Jeter, who threw Ventura out at the plate, but it was a
  brutal decision by Rivera, and could easily have been disastrous for the
  Yankees.

• That’s not the throw most people are talking about this morning,
  though. I don’t think Clemens had any malice aforethought in the
  already-played-out bat-throwing incident. He said after the game that he
  was just discarding the bat piece, albeit aggressively, and never expected
  Mike Piazza to be running to first base on the foul ball.

  Given a choice between believing that, or believing that Clemens was
  electing to throw a large piece of sharp wood at the greatest catcher ever,
  I’ll go with Clemens.

  That said, he exercised terrible judgment. Look at the replay: the bat
  fragment, splintered like Chris Turner‘s rear end, comes damn close
  to bouncing into the stands. And that, my friends, would have been a disaster.

Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com.