Bleacher Creature Feature
#7: Pitching Woo
14 April 2002
Right now I am listening (yes, listening -- I'll bitch about the Dish Network's lack of YES at another time) to Mike Mussina throw his second straight gem at Fenway Park. You'll recall the last one, which was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend last year, when he retired the first 26 batters before Carl Everett got a base hit to right. This time, Doug Mirabelli broke up the perfect game a bit sooner: the sixth inning, with a base hit to left. Fecal matter occurs.
However, this latest fine pitching performance by a Yankee starting pitcher (and only three of them to date have been bad: Pettitte against Toronto, and Clemens's two disasters, one against Baltimore, which was only after he caught the ball with the wrong hand, the other against Toronto on three days' rest) has led me to pondering something a bit more long term than whether or not the Yankees will leave Boston with at least a split.
Mel Stottlemyre has said that he will retire after this year. After two successful careers, one as a pitcher, one as a pitching coach, and after his battle with cancer, he's certainly earned it. He's been a major component of two of the most successful runs of teams in recent years (the 1984-1988 Mets and the 1996-present Yankees), and he was one of the few bright spots of the late 1960s Yankee teams as a pitcher. That's as good a legacy as any of us could hope for.
But if he really is retiring, that leaves the question of who should take over.
There are some fine pitching coaches out there. Most of them, however, are employed, and I don't see them going anywhere. Reds pitching coach Don Gullett has gained a reputation for turning retreads into productive pitchers. The Braves' Leo Mazzone is often credited with genius, and not without reason (note a) how many pitchers have left the Braves and collapsed, viz. John Rocker, Denny Neagle, Steve Avery, and now John Burkett, and b) how many pitchers have blossomed under Mazzone's tutelage). Brian Price got Lou Piniella to stop abusing his pitchers' arms, which is one of the big reasons why the Mariners are now one of the elite in the AL. Former Yankee pitcher Dave Righetti has worked miracles in San Francisco. And so on.
But there's a brilliant pitching coach who is presently unemployed.
Last summer, Dan Duquette -- a talented general manager with a penchant for doing incredibly stupid things -- got tired of his constant war with Jimy Williams and fired him, promoting Joe Kerrigan to manager.
This actually cost the Red Sox two valuable parts of their on-field management. 1) They lost Williams who -- despite sounding like your Uncle Elmer whom you don't like very much and don't understand most of what he says but you listen to anyhow 'cause he used to give you quarters when you were a kid -- had kept the clubhouse together despite the nonsense and who also had a damn good record to show for his time in Boston. 2) They lost their pitching coach, because Kerrigan could no longer be the pitching coach if he was the manager. Classic case of the Peter Principle at work: Kerrigan was promoted beyond his ability and, like Ray Miller before him in Baltimore, went from being a damn fine pitching coach to being an abysmal manager.
For years, Kerrigan had stitched together a Frankenstein's monster of retreads, never-weres, and has-beens (from talented rookies like Tomo Okha to over-the-hill-ers like Rod Beck) into a contending pitching staff behind Pedro Martinez. He was often given straw to work with and managed to weave gold.
Imagine what he could do with a real pitching staff.
The Yankees have an enviable collection of arms, both old (Roger Clemens, David Wells), median (Mike Mussina, Ramiro Mendoza), and young (Ted Lilly, Adrian Hernandez). Kerrigan is just the person to take over
Besides, it'll really piss off the Red Sox fans if the Yankees take on yet another former Bostonian. That alone, to my mind, makes it worth it.....
* * *
As I was writing the above, the Yankees rallied in the seventh. Willie Banks came in, gave up a home run to Rondell White, then threw seven straight balls -- four to Shane Spencer, three to Alfonso Soriano -- before Soriano got an RBI double. Then Jeter walked. I'm wondering why Banks is still in the game -- Sunny Kim's warmed up -- but he pitches to Nick Johnson, who promptly knocks in another run with a base hit. Now Kim's in. I'm not sure what the count was when Rondell hit his homer, but Banks threw all of two strikes after the homer; he obviously had nothing.
Kim, of course, then retired all three batters, two on strikeouts.
Ah, well. If Grady Little wants to leave him in, let him leave him in. Mussina fell apart in the seventh and needed Mendoza to bail him out, so the extra runs the Yankees scored helped out.
NEXT: Rainy Monday Musings
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