Jorge Posada brought his bat last night, but seemed to forget his brain.
The Yankees veteran catcher made a few mental blunders in Game 4 of the ALCS that might have hurt the Yankees, if not for CC Sabathia and the onslaught of late runs in their 10-1 win over the Angels.
After Alex Rodriguez homered to make it 5-0 Yankees in the top of the fifth, Posada followed with a walk. Posada stole second as Hideki Matsui was whiffed for the first out of the inning. Robinson Cano followed with a bullet to over Torii Hunter’s head in center field. Hunter bluffed Posada into thinking he was going to make the catch on a ball that hit the wall on a fly. That should have made Posada retreat halfway to the bag, as pointed out by FOX analyst Tim McCarver, but instead he ran all the way back to second base to tag up, and was only able to advance to third on Cano’s double. According to FOX, Posada mouthed “my bad” to Cano for costing the second baseman a RBI.
Nick Swisher followed with a grounder back to the mound and Posada was caught halfway up the baseline and was chased back to third base, which Cano was standing next to (not on). Posada and Cano both were tagged out after Posada ran right past the bag. It should have been a double play if not for the fact that third-base umpire Tim McClelland was more inept than the Yankees baserunners.
Then Posada’s lapses came behind the plate. With runners on first and second in the sixth inning, Juan Rivera grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, which moved Hunter to third with two outs. Problem is, Posada thought it was an inning-ending double play and started retreating to the dugout. An alert Rodriguez took off for home, which kept Hunter at third. CC Sabathia pointed Posada back toward the plate, and when he got there Mark Teixeira was shouting “Two outs, two outs!”
In the end, the final was 10-1 and the Yankees could have afforded few more breakdowns and still would have won handily, which is why everyone was happy to give Posada a pass. But on Saturday morning, A-Rod was not afforded the same luxury. After he ran through a late stop sign by third-base coach Rob Thomson and was thrown out at home in the Yankees’ 4-1 Game 1 win, Rodriguez was getting skewered on WFAN with some fans even suggesting that Joe Girardi should have pulled him from the game to teach him a lesson.
Rodriguez’s mistakes came because he over-hustled and tried to make a play, Posada’s several came because of mental mistakes and it was hardly mentioned. Even with his clutch postseason performance this year, A-Rod is still treated by some fans as a second-class Yankee.
