Bronx, N.Y., August 13, 2005 — I had to feel for the young woman seated with friends in the row in front of me tonight. She was attending her first live (so to speak) ballgame. The throngs that pack Yankee Stadium night after night have become quite a phenomenon, but if she returns after that game’s first three innings, it can be posited that these nightly gatherings have moved from the phenomenal to the miraculous.

First of all, as I seem to report daily during the summer of 2005, the Stadium was enveloped in steambath-like conditions. But Friday evening comprised one step further into atmosphere most foul. The haze that hung in the air not only enveloped fans in sweat and grime; the views were obscured in an unhealthy tint not unlike the shimmering sun shear one witnesses in films based in desert-like locales. It was like watching a black and white movie colorized by technicians unversed in the kinds of vistas humankind perceives as pleasant.

And although the game itself did not start well, it wasn’t until the second inning that the unhappy crowd began to become vocal in their displeasure. Lefthander Al Leiter, who pitched to rave reviews in Boston following the All Star break, has been pitching scared ever since, apparently convinced that if any of his pitches find the heart of the plate, opposing lineups will whack them around like a pinata. He pitched around a Gary Matthews, Jr. single leading off the first, but the 19 tosses it took to record three outs were a sign of things to come, as was the 3-0 count Leiter forged after three tosses to Rangers DH Phil Nevin. Although you would not have believed it in the second inning, Leiter pitched through five, and in that time he fashioned three-ball counts to Texas hitters a staggering 13 times.

On the other side of the ledger, the Rangers appeared set, with tall, lanky righthander Chris Young, a 6’7″ athlete who just as easily could have played professional basketball as made his living firing 95-mph fastballs past opposing batters. Young flummoxed Yankee hitters in the Stadium back in April, whiffing seven in six innings, and allowing just four hits in a 5-1 Rangers win. And Friday he picked up where he left off, striking out the side in the Yankees first around a Michael Young error on Gary Sheffield’s roller up the middle.

Leiter started the marathon home second by throwing three straight off the plate to ex-Yank Alfonso Soriano, a player eager to swing at any ball within his reach. Once Alfonso singled to right, Leiter got two ground ball outs, though he went to 3-2 on left fielder Kevin Mench before retiring him on a roller to the box. Adam DeRosa played right to get another righty bat into Buck Showalter’s lineup, but Leiter walked the .209 hitter on four in a row that weren’t close. He then loaded the bases by hitting catcher Rod Barajas on a 2-2 pitch, and fell behind to a 1-0 score once he walked in a run by throwing four of seven off the mark to centerfielder Gary Matthews.

With the sacks jammed, the defense was stressed, and speedy shortstop Michael Young’s slow hopper to Jeter at short presented a dilemma. With Cano and the baserunner arriving at second at almost the same moment and Young busting it down the line, Jeter double clutched and then fired wildly to second. Two unearned runs scored and Jeter was charged with two miscues on the one play, but the onus for the quick 3-0 deficit was on Leiter and his wild ways, at least to this Yankee fan. Al followed with another three-ball count before striking out Mark Teixeira, but the ugly three-run uprising had cost Leiter 44 pitches and the allegiance of most of the crowd. A healthy minority lost interest in the game altogether.

And that was too bad, because Chris Young’s three first-inning K’s were a deception. The Yanks reached him for three hits and a run in their half of the second, keyed by the 3-for-4 Hideki Matsui’s double. The Texas righty threw 50 pitches through two, and the game was an hour long early in the third. Alfonso Soriano restored Texas’s three-run lead when he reached Leiter for a homer to left in the third, but the fact that Al put the Rangers down on just 16 pitches made it feel like he was doing better. On the other hand, Young’s third inning was worse than his second, and the Yanks snatched the lead at 5-4 on five straight hits, capped by Bernie Williams’s two-run bomb to right center. It would have been 6-4 but Texas made a great relay on Posada’s one-out double that scored Sheffield, as they pegged Matsui out at the plate on an 8-4-2 without a moment wasted.

This became depressing when the Yanks failed to handle the ball as crisply once Matthews lined a gapper to right center in the top of the fourth. Leiter had characteristically fallen behind the Texas outfielder 3-0, and Gary lined the ball hard on the 3-1 pitch. The ball got by Sheffield and to the wall, and when Robinson Cano’s relay throw to third veered to the home plate side, Matthews had a triple. He would score the tying run on the next pitch as Young singled through the Yanks’ drawn-in infield. Two more three-ball counts followed, resulting in a single and a strike out, but Al got lucky when Jorge Posada nailed Young trying for third to close the frame.

Thursday night Derek Jeter responded once Texas rallied to tie the Yanks by blasting a home run to right for the eventual game winner. No one in the crowd thought that his longer blast in the home fourth would settle things at 6-5 Friday, but that was to be the final score, and for good reason. Because although my friends and the baseball novice left around then after two-plus hours of ugly baseball, once the starters exited this game, a semblance of the game so may of us love returned. Southpaw J.C. Wilson took over for Young starting the fourth, and Jeter took his second pitch out. But with horrible numbers coming in, young Wilson held the Yanks there through the next four frames, and the Bombers would not score on righty Francisco Cordero in the home eighth either.

But more startling was what happened on the Yankee mound. I’m sure Joe Torre was delighted Leiter was able to pitch through five for the win, and that he was bolstered by the fact that Al struck out two (of five) in that last frame as well. I’m not a Torre basher, but if he thinks Al found something in the fifth, he’s kidding himself. Sure, Al whiffed two, but he had two more three-ball counts as well. When Leiter was pitching for the crosstown Mets, Yankee fans could always refer to Al’s propensity for reaching three-digit pitch counts early in the sixth inning. But this day he just made it through five on 125 pitches. At 25 per inning, tonight’s result notwithstanding, you just cannot win that way.

Thursday night the pen ruined the fine start that Scott Proctor had fashioned. Friday the pen was magnificent. Felix Rodriguez got four outs, and young lefty Wayne Franklin retired his two batters in a big spot. Starter Shawn Chacon, hopefully just exercising his “throw” day between starts, pitched the eighth, and Tanton Sturtze closed it because Mariano Rivera had been used over 3.3 frames over two days.

When fans check the paper and the Web Saturday morning, they’ll see that Yankee starter Al Leiter got the win in Friday’s evening tilt in the Bronx, and that Texas southpaw reliever Wilson took the loss. That’s just wrong. Leiter simply did not pitch well enough to win, while Wilson did. Look at the numbers. The two starters combined to throw 206 pitches through eight half-innings. They were reached for 14 hits, allowed five walks, hit a batter, and gave up 10 of the 11 runs scored. Texas relievers were good, throwing just 10 more pitches than Chris Young did for three frames while they struck out five.

But on the Yankee side, the performance of the pitching subs bordered on the surreal. Felix Rodriguez, Wayne Franklin, Shawn Chacon, and Tanyon Sturtze turned six innings. They allowed two hits, walked but one, recorded three whiffs, and surrendered no runs.

So when you see that Al Leiter got the win with J.C. Wilson the loss, don’t believe it. Only two men pitched badly Friday, the two starters. The stats will show that a starter won, and that a reliever took the loss.

But this was one night where the “Pen Was Mightier…”

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!