Torre Goes With a Suspect Lineup

The wise man of October has worn many unusual things this fall, from rumpled jackets to streaming tears, but did you see that nutty outfit Joe Torre donned Thursday night?

A bull’s-eye.

With owner George Steinbrenner glaring down from a Pro Player Stadium luxury box, Torre picked an interesting time to show him who’s boss.

In Game 5 of the World Series, Torre

benched his top two home run hitters and started a limping pitcher.

The result for the New York Yankees was less a loss than a surrender, the Florida Marlins taking a 6-4 decision that didn’t feel nearly that close.

Talk about your reel reversals. On this strangest of nights, the Marlins were the pin-striped ones and Torre was the fish.

Florida has moved within one victory of its second World Series title in seven years while Torre has surely stumbled back into the gnarliest doghouse in sports.

He will probably not be fired for this, Steinbrenner already having promised that he would not make a change this winter, we heard, we think, we guess.

But Steinbrenner has dropped the legendary hammer for less.

The biggest game of the year, and your two biggest hitters -- Jason Giambi and Alfonso Soriano -- are on the bench while your bullpen is in a state of self-induced chaos.

The biggest game of the year, and your lineup includes Enrique Wilson, Karim Garcia and Nick Johnson.

The biggest game of the year, and suddenly it’s spring training.

In the Florida clubhouse, there was disbelief.

“I was shocked when Soriano didn’t play,” Derrek Lee said. “Then when Giambi went out, and [David] Wells went out, we knew we had to capitalize.”

In the Yankee clubhouse, there was numbing shock.

“Jason and me are a big part of this lineup,” Soriano said. “It’s very important to have us in there to help the team.”

In the Yankee front office, there were only sighs.

“Joe has to make some tough decisions as manager, and he made them,” General Manager Brian Cashman said.

Start with two position players, whose loss cost the starting lineup 79 homers, 198 RBIs, and more than $120 million in salary.

It’s understandable that Torre would want to move Soriano out of the leadoff spot, considering he was batting .209 in the playoffs with a postseason-record 25 strikeouts.

But the only thing he can still hit is fastballs, and about the only thing Florida starter Brad Penny throws is fastballs, so couldn’t he have just been dropped in the order?

“If he happens to hit in front of the pitcher, that’s certainly not going to help his selectivity either,” Torre said before the game. “It just didn’t look like he was as sure of himself as I’d like to see ... I thought about it all night, thought about it all day, got to the ballpark here and was still fighting with myself about it, and then I just decided to do it.”

That decision, alone, would be questionable. But then, compounded with the later benching of Giambi, it bordered on ridiculous.

Torre said he didn’t know about Giambi until, while walking through the trainer’s room before the game, he noticed him with a huge ice bag around his sore left knee.

“He didn’t say anything, but when I asked him about it, he sort of volunteered that he wasn’t moving very well around the bag,” he said, referring to first base. “We play a lot of close games, so we can’t afford to give anything away, so I told him I wasn’t playing him.”

So a first baseman was benched for, um, defense? Even with Florida’s bunting skills, is that really worth it?

Certainly, replacement Nick Johnson threw out a bunting Juan Pierre on the Marlins’ first at-bat of the game, a play Giambi could not have made. But a 41-homer guy who hit two home runs in Game 7 of the AL championship series is benched because he’s not nimble enough?

“It was my understanding that if we had been in an American League park where he could have been the designated hitter, he would have played,” said Cashman.

So the world-famous Yankees are going to claim they lost this World Series because of geography?

New York fans may rail at Giambi for not forcing his way into the lineup the way Paul O’Neill and Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez always did.

But the feeling here is, when Torre saw Giambi on the trainer’s table, knowing he was battling the same injury that has plagued him much of the season, the manager could have kept walking.

In the final years of his dynasty, weary of all the hassles from above, Torre has clearly become a player’s manager. The problem with being a player’s manager, of course, is that the players will inevitably get you fired.

Incidentally, when Giambi batted as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning, he homered.

Hmmmm.

As for Wells, we have just one question.

Why was he the starting pitcher?

Battling a sore back all year, he limped into the stadium, threw awkwardly in the bullpen beforehand, and everybody knew it.

“I knew right away he was stiff,” said Mel Stottlemyre, pitching coach. “We figured we would just take it one inning at a time.”

One inning at a time? What was this, a minor league rehab start? Where were we, Rancho Cucamonga?

Wells didn’t hurt the Yankees with one scoreless inning. But how much better would Jose Contreras pitch if he had time to prepare? He walked three batters and gave up three runs in his first inning before finally settling down.

Better yet, why not start Andy Pettitte on three days’ rest? Certainly, he is a veteran who was already scheduled to start Game 6 but, shoot, the Florida Marlins haven’t stuck to a set pitching schedule this entire postseason.

“It would have been a little difficult to start Andy,” said Stottlemyre wryly. “He had already flown to New York to rest up for Saturday.”

On this strangest of nights, it would have been best if his manager had joined him.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.