Joe Girardi's moves validated by New York Yankees' 27th World Series title Tim Smith

[Kenny Guido]

Joe Girardi's moves validated by New York Yankees' 27th World Series title

Tim Smith
Thursday, November 5th 2009, 4:00 AM

Sipkin/News
Manager Joe Girardi guides the New York Yankees to their first World Series title since 2000.

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The mandate for Joe Girardi at the beginning of the season was simple, if not so easy to achieve - win a World Series with one of the most talent-rich and expensive baseball teams ever assembled.
That is the charge for a Yankees manager every year, but never more so than this season, after GM Brian Cashman spent $423.5 million of the Steinbrenners' money to bring CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira to the Bronx after the Yankees missed the playoffs last season.
It took six games in the World Series, and a gamble on a three-man rotation, but Girardi got his job done, as the Yankees beat the Phillies, 7-3, last night in Game 6.
"I really believe in this club. I've always believed in this organization, the job the Steinbrenner family has done, Cashman and his staff and it's where we wanted to be and the guys did it," Girardi said.
As soon as Robinson Cano gobbled up Shane Victorino's grounder and tossed it to Mark Teixiera for the final out, Girardi was engulfed in a celebratory hug by his coaches in the dugout. It was a long embrace. You could almost feel the weight of the season-long expectations being lifted from the manager's shoulders.
"The guys have been through so much," Girardi said, standing on a stage at second base, clutching the championship trophy that will always accompany his name in the record books. "It's unbelieveable how this team came together in spring training. They just kept fighting and fighting and fighting."
It is the 27th championship for the Yankees and it matches Girardi's uniform number, the reason he picked it in the first place. The victory validated Girardi's sometimes-criticized managerial methods, and gave him the gravitas needed to deflect future second-guessing as he pursues more championships.
Now, when anyone questions Girardi about the use of his scout books, charts, graphs and statistics, he can give them the finger - the ring finger. No one gets a bigger bounce from the Yankees winning the 2009 World Series than Girardi, who is no longer standing in the shadow of the other Joe, even if his former skipper Joe Torre won four.
"As a manager you still have that job, but the joy is for other people, because you know as a player what it takes to win a championship," Girardi said.
With a team that is still rich and deep in talent, Girardi can make a serious run at matching Torre title-for-title.
Throughout the postseason, Girardi had been second-guessed for his bullpen choices as the bridge to closer Mariano Rivera got more rickety with each passing game.

 

[Kenny Guido]

But the biggest questions about Girardi's methods came with his decision to go with three starting pitchers in the postseason. It seemed to work out fine during the ALCS against the Angels, when only CC Sabathia was forced to go on three days' rest, and a rainout before Game 6 actually gave Andy Pettitte an extra day off before the clincher.
But the plan seemed to backfire in the World Series when A.J. Burnett, operating on short rest, was shelled and couldn't even make it through three innings in Game 5. Girardi didn't panic, even though his critics said it might doom the Yankees against the Phillies. Instead, Girardi stayed the course and went with Pettitte on short rest last night, even though Pettitte, 37, hadn't done it in the playoffs in six years.
In the end, short rest hardly seemed to matter to the veteran lefty. He could have been going on one hour's rest the way he handled the Phillies' lineup, particularly the hot-hitting Chase Utley, who hit into a double play and struck out swinging in his first two at-bats.
Pettitte made Girardi look like a genius for having faith that the veteran would be more than equal to the task of christening the new Yankee Stadium with its first World Series championship.
It was not a charmed season for Girardi. He had to work to shed his prickly 2008 image, and that started in spring training when he took his team for a surprise trip to a pool hall. He also had to navigate the team through the Alex Rodriguez nightmare.
First came Rodriguez being outed as, and later admitting, that he was a steroids cheat. And then it was Rodriguez missing the first 28 games of the season after hip surgery. Through it all, Girardi managed to keep the ship steady until Rodriguez hit his stride. And once he did, the Yankees were off to the races, winning 103 games and heading straight for a return to October glory.
The one hiccup - and it was a big one - for Girardi this season was the Joba Chamberlain experiment. Limiting Chamberlain's innings late in the season backfired as Chamberlain couldn't step into the No. 4 starter's job in the postseason, and at first seemed equally unprepared to confidently work out of the bullpen.
But even that was washed away in the champagne bath that greeted Girardi in the victorious Yankees clubhouse after the game.
Winning a championship has a way of curing all ills, making a manager accused of over-managing look less meddlesome, and validating plans and strategies that critics attack.
But the residue of Girardi winning his first World Series with the Yankees is that he has to come back and do it again next year.
Or else ...