Bronx, N.Y., June 18, 2005 — The long-running Off-Broadway New York hit that survived the longest is the musical The Fantastiks, with a run of more than twenty years, but many blocks further from the Great White Way, a star who has been playing to rave reviews for almost 10 years brought 55,000 roaring fans to their feet in Saturday’s sixth inning in Yankee Stadium. Yankee shortstop and Captain Derek Jeter broke a 136-at-bat bases-loaded drought and and smashed his first career grand slam over the deep center field fence. He followed with a singleton shot to right to cap the 8-1 Yankee win, and a 2-0 lead in games over the visiting Chicago Cubs.
And Jeter’s long ball heroics will certainly go a long way toward obscuring the other great performance by a Pinstriper, because a superb righthanded rookie Chien-Ming Yang had his best performance among a handful of impressive starts. Wang allowed one run on five hits through eight innings, and he struck out five Cubs batters too. The number is not coincidental, each punch out came in an inning where the visitors recorded a hit, in four frames the hit came first, and three times he struck out the very next batter.
But the best number is 14, as in how many many ground ball outs he fashioned among the 19 Cubs he retired who hit the ball fair. Add two for the infield pops to Jeter and Robinson Cano and a true picture of dominance begins to emerge. Yankees starters Mike Mussina and Randy Johnson put in devastating appearances against the NL Central Pirates earlier this week, but Wang was every bit as good in his own way Saturday afternoon.
Because the rookie allowed a first-pitch sixth-inning home run to DH Jason Dubois, and was forced to throw 20 pitches in the seventh when catcher Michael Barrett fouled six straight before whiffing, Joe Torre decided to replace him with Tanyon Sturtze for the ninth, even though he retired three straight in the eighth on a mere six throws. But his pitch count was a low 88, and a starter who can get through six frames on 62 pitches (as Wang did) will have plenty of complete games before it’s all over. Carl Pavano failed with a 4-0 lead Friday night, and Kevin Brown is ailing yet again, but the Yankee team seems to have arrived in the Bronx for the first time together on their return from the horrendous 3-9 road trip.
Three starters have shone, and the pen earned last night’s win with three scoreless frames. But not to be left behind, the offense has been pounding opponents via some very resurgent batters all week. Jeter netted five rbi’s today, and he has been the beacon of consistency all year, but after some Jason Giambi heroics early this week, two other lineup stalwarts have been making the most noise. Hideki Matsui, reduced to designated-hitter status due to a tender ankle, leads the parade. He matched the Jeter five rbi’s Friday night, homered to give the Bombers early leads twice, and he has nine hits and nine rbi’s to show for five game’s work.
Following close behind in gaudy numbers is catcher Jorge Posada, but he takes a back seat to no one in the maturity he has displayed as a teammate in his calm acceptance of the move to name backup John Flaherty the catcher for the Big Unit, lefty Randy Johnson. Posada’s home run gave the Yanks an early lead on Wednesday, and although he has only four games worth of at bats this homestand, his fourth-inning double to score Matsui Saturday knocked in his fourth run on his seventh hit.
Although a city the size of New York obviously has a fanbase for every big league team, and the presence of a significant one for the Cubs would not surprise me, you got the feeling in Yankee Stadium the last two days that lots of people had traveled to our fair city for a raucous summer weekend. They got to celebrate their game Cubbies for a couple of innings Friday night, but it is the party’s hosts and their fans who have been doing most of the dancing in the aisles.
My brother took the D Train up the west side for Saturday’s game with eight guys from Nebraska (seven Cubs, one Yankee), and following the night before’s 9-6 come-from-behind Yankee win, I went south on the E with two Colorado-based fans. And I saw flocks of Cubs fans rejoice to an 11-4 thumping of the Padres in Petco Park two weeks ago. The team has a good, and good-spirited (and huge) fanbase. The way they take over Take Me Out to the Ballgame is very impressive, particularly in light of the way Jeter had just ended their hopes in Saturday’s game. They were quieter during play after the bomb though.
With the NL team from the nation’s Second City in for the weekend, it’s fitting we acknowledge the 63rd birthday of Chicago-based film critic Roger Ebert this day. A week ago, sports pages across the country were either bemoaning or celebrating the demise of the 2005 Yankees, and Talk Radio in the city was rife with bridge jumpers as well. But it wouldn’t be hard to give a two-word review to the team’s work in the five days since thay have returned:
Thumbs Up!
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!