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          New York Yankees

          Joe Girardi waits too long to use Andrew Miller

          • Andrew Marchand, ESPN Senior WriterMay 5, 2016, 11:38 PM ET
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              Andrew Marchand is a senior writer for ESPNNewYork. He also regularly contributes to SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, ESPNews, ESPN New York 98.7 FM and ESPN Radio. He joined ESPN in 2007 after nine years at the New York Post. Follow Andrew on Twitter »
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          BALTIMORE -- Joe Girardi's point isn't completely illogical, even if you don't agree with it. It's just that a lot of observers, including this one, thought he should have turned to closer Andrew Miller to start the 10th against the Baltimore Orioles Thursday instead of Johnny Barbato.

          Yes, the New York Yankees had no lead, but Miller -- who has yet to allow a run this year and had thrown just 15 pitches over the previous 10 days -- could have extended the game.

          It seems like simple math to worry about the 10th before you concern yourself with the 11th. Girardi didn't see it that way.

          Before Miller could enter the game, it was too late. Barbato put on two guys. Pedro Alvarez hit a fly ball off Miller to a weak-armed Jacoby Ellsbury and the game was over, 1-0 for the Orioles, to end an awful 2-7 Yankees' trip.

          So, what was Girardi thinking? Joe, the floor is yours.

          "Because we are not winning," said Girardi, who was making the 10th-inning decision from the road manager's office after being ejected arguing a non-balk call in the fourth. "Once [Barbato] got in trouble, with two lefties up, I said, 'I'm going to go to Miller at this point.' He is a guy we need to save.

          "I can't ask him to give me two innings. If we are winning, I'm not going to ask him to give me two innings."

          But, Joe, do you see any logic in going to Miller in the 10th?

          "So he shuts them down an inning, but eventually Barbato is going to pitch," Girardi said. "I'm trying to get a couple of outs out of Barbato and then maybe you can get an inning and a third. It just didn't work."

          Managers are judged on their decisions and there is an outcome. For the rest of us, we can only imagine what would have happened.

          Maybe Miller would have pitched a perfect 10th and Barbato, who likely would have been set up to face the top of the Orioles' order in the 11th, would have lost it then.

          You can understand how you would want to have the dominant Miller face the top of the order in an ideal world. The last-place Yankees are not in any utopia and they remind no one of the prior teams that went on dynastic runs. Still, it is not like a similar circumstance hasn't happened before.

          In the 2003 World Series, then-Yankees manager Joe Torre decided to go with a struggling Jeff Weaver to pitch the 12th in Game 4 instead of Mariano Rivera. Rivera never entered the game as Weaver gave up a homer. The Yankees did not win the Series that year.

          This Yankees team is a long shot to even make the playoffs. They wasted a splendid outing by Masahiro Tanaka Thursday and the manager may want to rethink his road reliever plan for the next time.