Girardi explains Guzman over Hinske
October 16, 2009, 8:20 am by iYankees · Leave a Comment
Here’s Joe Girardi explaining the decision to add Freddy Guzman, in place of Eric Hinske, to the ALCS roster:
“We thought we could use another speed guy in this round,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “We’ve had some success doing those types of things late in games, and in a seven-game series, we felt that it could come up late in games. As we saw, the games against Minnesota were very close, and sometimes you could use a couple of pinch-runners. And if Gardy gets a start, then you don’t have a pinch-runner. It just frees us up to do some more things.”
With Posada, Molina, and Matsui on board, I think that the Guzman addition is a no-brainer. However, though the move is a relatively minor one, it has been criticized by a few fans who fear that the Yankees are trying to play Angel baseball rather than Yankee baseball. What do you think? Do you prefer Guzman’s wheels or would Hinske’s power serve as a more useful bench tool during this particular series?
