Bronx, N.Y., September 19, 2004 — The stage was set for the huge rubber game in the Bronx on Sunday afternoon. The two teams in first and second place atop the AL East were meeting in the third of three with a shot at first place on the line, and with a look to a possible rematch in the month of October. The roaring crowd of 55,153 matched Saturday’s total exactly, and pushed the series number of turnstile turners over 165,000, resulting in a season crowd Yankee record of 3,555,298.
The Yanks had restored their 3.5-game Division lead with Saturday’s 14-4 crusher after the disappointing 3-2 loss in the rain Friday night. But the Bombers have won two three-game series in recent weeks where they lost a game in each by the combined score of 39-8. They know job one, that all the numbers in the world can’t save you if you don’t win more games than your opponent does. It was Moose vs. Pedro, pitchers for each side whose years of success in this game ensured that few in the crowd needed a surname to understand whom they were watching. A grim and tight battle was anticipated under clear crisp skies.
It was not to be. The visiting Red Sox forced Mike Mussina to throw 59 pitches to get through the first three innings, and Mike was the one hurler of the two who had the great game. He wasn’t scored on until he threw his 79th pitch, which Johnny Damon smacked off Mike’s leg for a single. Pedro, on the other hand, found himself behind 2-0 after just four tosses to the plate.
It seemed Martinez was trying to get ahead of New York batters all day on first-pitch fastballs. He got away with it often, but not often enough. Alex Rodriguez smacked a first pitch single with one out in the first. Pedro tossed to first with Gary Sheffield flashing that menacing piece of lumber in his hands, then came in and Shef powered a drive a couple of rows deep in the left field lower boxes. After Matsui rolled out to first, Bernie Williams sent Johnny Damon hustling and straining to reach (and make a fine catch on) his drive into Death Valley on the first pitch he saw.
Mussina meanwhile was pitching effectively, allowing at least one baserunner in each frame but the third, though that inning was no picnic for Mike either, what with Damon’s 10-pitch battle leading off before succumbing on a soft flair to center on which Derek Jeter made a fine over-the-shoulder grab. Although bright and sunny, it was cool and windy (62 degrees, 10 mph winds), and soft flies were an adventure all day. On the other side of the ball, Boston third baseman Bill Mueller made a nice catch on Matsui’s foul pop along the rail with one down in the home eighth. And Jeter had to range to the third base line and then back behind shortstop to flag down Ramirez’s short fly in the fifth.
And speaking of the Yankee captain, he’s been wielding a potent bat of late, and Sunday was no exception. He slashed a deep liner into the Boston bullpen on Martinez’s (again) first pitch of the third inning for a 3-0 Yankee lead, and greeted reliever Mike Timlin with a first-pitch bunt base hit in the five run seventh. That was the frame that ended Pedro’s day, and in disastrous fashion. Despite the tracer Damon tracked down, Bernie Williams was the only Yankee starter without a hit, but he walked three times, the second on four pitches leading off the seventh. With Jorge Posada at the plate at a pivotal moment, Pedro got a call strike with his first offering this time, but the second was a back breaker. The Yankee catcher laced yet another too straight fastball the other way, and when it cleared the wall by the left field foul pole, the Yanks had three bombs off Martinez accounting for a 5-1 lead.
Things got strange then, as Boston skipper Terry Francona led a Boston meeting with Pedro to which he invited Mueller, Cabrera, Bellhorn, Millar, and Varitek too. When Damon had plated the lone Red Sox run with a ball off Moose’s leg in the fifth, veteran home plate ump Bruce Froemming almost reached the mound before Yankee trainer Gene Monahan did. But Froemming was apparently on break during the Boston confab, respecting their privacy to such an extent that he never crossed home plate as the Francona pep talk (or whatever) dragged on.
All of this gave Timlin time to warm up, but there is something about Boston managers and separating Pedro from the Yankee Stadium mound during an inning that just doesn’t scan. Martinez remained on the mound for a four-pitch walk to Olerud, a Sierra single that became a double when Ramirez got too close to the first hop, and a Cairo double that became a single on an unlucky carom in the right field corner that delivered the ball quickly to an alert Trot Nixon. Finally summoned to the mound, Timlin was victimized by Jeter’s bunt and filled the bases by hitting A-rod with a pitch (the second Yankee hit on the day, about par I’d say). When Sheffield bounced into a 5-4-3 that scored Cairo, Pedro’s eight-run, five-inning-plus line was complete.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan gave the big game some pregame buzz by throwing out the first pitch to countryman Hideki Matsui, who managed a third-inning single on what had to be a big day for him. The handsome and energetic Koizumi obviously enjoyed the moment, exciting the crowd by fiddling with the rosin bag before floating a pitch into the righthanded batter’s box, though it passed the test of reaching the catcher without a bounce. And the appearance on back-to-back days of world-famous tenor Ronan Tynan to sing his plaintive rendition of God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch lent further heft to the momentous contest.
The Yankee sixth inning was not umpire Froemming’s only bad moment, by the way. Jeter fouled the first pitch of the game off Bruce at 1:09, and Bill Mueller smacked him with a 1-1 foul before bouncing back to Moose to end the second. Though nervous until the breakout five-run sixth, the Yankee fans among the throng obviously had the most fun, with their team leading as it was from the outset. The taunts drifted through the afternoon air, but once the game’s outcome was no longer in doubt, things became ugly with Boston fans being driven from their Tier seats by derisive screams and unfortunate physical confrontations. There will always be an ugly side to this rivalry, it appears.
And now the Yankee lead is 4.5 with two weeks to go. Boston’s 5.5-game lead over Anaheim for the Wild Card is probably safe, but I would suggest they focus their energies that way with eight games left against an improving Baltimore club. I’m sure the Yanks will be wary with the dangerous Blue Jays and the playoffs-bound Twins.
The Yanks have Mussina to thank for the cushion, as he is finally pitching like the ace we have expected him to be all year. Mike went seven, allowing seven hits but striking out eight, seven of them swinging. His 82/35 strike/ball ratio was exceptional, and the 24 out of 30 first-pitch strikes bespeak a confident pitcher. Runs build confidence, and after Moose threw a first-pitch ball to Ortiz once Jeter had ballooned the lead to three runs in the third, he then found the zone on the first offering to an amazing 16 of the last 17 batters to face him. It is ironic that the lone ball in that string was the only one he threw on the day to Boston backstop Jason Varitek, who struck out three times Sunday, and eight times in an 0-for-10 three game set.
The Yankees added a run on a seventh-inning Olerud single, and when Alex Rodriguez reached veteran Pedro Astacio for a home run after yet another Jeter single in the eighth, the Yanks had an 11-1 lead and a win in the rubber game of the set. The late English novelist William Golding would have been 93 this day. Although the behavior that eventually takes place in his Nobel Prize-winning novel was perhaps more descriptive of what could be found in the stands in the game’s latter stages, its title is an apt description of the Yankee offense this day, and this year:
The Lord(s) of the Flies
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!