Bronx, N.Y., June 11, 2004 — The Yankees last played the San Diego Padres in the regular season on the West Coast in 2002, right after a series with the Rockies. Both teams hit the heck out of the ball in Colorado that June, and the Yankees expected to do more of the same when they arrived in San Diego.
As it turned out, although they managed to sprinkle 10 safeties throughout the rubber game of that series on June 21, they had to scratch a run in the top of the ninth to escape it with a 3-2 win. More telling, they split the first two games while stroking only nine hits in 18 innings, and they fell in the first game 9-1. Although they did not bunch them into one play that day, they made two errors, giving that series opener a look very much like the stinker they played in the Bronx Friday night.
This easily could have been the Yanks’ third 2-1 victory in a week if Mike Mussina had not strained his groin. In a strange twist, Moose so dominated the first three frames, his performance may have given San Diego starter Adam Eaton the time he needed to get his game established while all eyes were on Mussina and his masterful work. Mike appeared to have all his pitches going, he threw a first-pitch strike to the first nine Padres he faced, and the two whiffs he posted in each of the first two frames doubled Eaton’s total for his seven frames of work the whole night.
While Mike dominated, Adam survived. Leading off for the Yanks in the bottom of the first, shortstop Derek Jeter extended him to eight pitches before striking out, and Bernie Williams lined an 0-2 pitch to Jay Payton in deep center. When Alex Rodriguez lifted a long fly several rows deep into the right field seats for a 1-0 Yankee lead, all signs appeared to point toward a hometown victory. The Yanks went quietly from that point until Jay Payton made a good running catch on Wilson’s soft liner to short right center for the second out of the third. On that play, Padre right fielder Brian Giles appeared to experience brain lock, as Payton traveled roughly twice the distance Giles would have had to if he had merely run forward once he realized the ball was in front of him.
Continuing play in the third, Jeter followed with a single right down the right field line past Phil Nevin at first, but the Yanks got unlucky as the ball caromed off the wall right to Giles and he held Jeter at first. Bernie Williams almost split the outfielders with a 1-1 single to the right of center field, but Jeter was able to race only to third when Payton corraled it, not home. Even so, hometown fans were feeling confident even after A-Rod’s routine fly to right closed the inning, as Moose was dealing and the Yanks already had three hits, almost a fourth, and a run.
It was about this time, however, that fans became aware that Felix Heredia was warming in the Yankee pen. Mussina had strained his groin (though that was never announced in the Stadium), a disturbing development in Yankee land the same week Kevin Brown needed an MRI to check on his balky lower back. Joe Torre has been very reluctant to use lefty relievers Heredia and Gabe White, but it became clear quickly that we would discover this game whether or not they were fully deserving of that lack of trust.
And it started badly. In a flat-footed tie after the Padres had scratched an unearned run off Moose in the third (and more on that later), two of the first three Padres up in the fourth reached, scoring a run on a Loretta double and Nevin single around a nine-pitch battle Heredia finally won by coaxing a Giles fly to left. Felix walked Ramon Hernandez on four pitches leading off the fifth, and Greene and Burroughs singles and a fielder’s choice had the Yankees down 4-1.
It was during this part of the game that Adam Eaton earned his win. While Moose had made the Padres look bad on an assortment of hard, soft, straight and crooked pitches, Eaton urged the Yanks to hit the ball. In both the fourth and the fifth he got two called strikes and threw just three other balls across the plate. All six were struck into outs. By the time the fifth inning had come to a close, Eaton had coaxed just two Yankee swings and misses. And when Bernie Williams worked a walk to open the home sixth followed by the Yanks’ fourth (and last) hit by Rodriguez and a Giambi walk, the Yanks had their best chance, with the bases jammed and no one out. They notched one on a Sheffield sac fly, but Eaton got Posada on a liner to short left, and he could see the light (and a win) at the end of the tunnel. Changing tactics, he mixed his pitches more, and added four more swings and misses to his total, three of them resulting in swinging K’s by Matsui, Sierra, and Jeter.
Yankee pitching, meanwhile, kept it close through the sixth and seventh innings, worked, respectively, by Heredia and Paul Quantrill. But Paul allowed a run in the eighth, and Gabe White’s ninth-inning appearance ballooned the Padres’ score by five, three of them on a Nevin homer to deep left. The explosive Bomber comeback fans had been spoiled into expecting never arrived.
It was a nice night in the Bronx, with a crowd just 145 short of 50,000 witnessing the action until the late ugly innings. The Scoreboard showed some Dave Winfield highlights from the archives after the bottom of the seventh, and then showed that Dave was in attendance, to a nice hand. And Mark Loretta’s eighth-inning hard foul into the section 11 Tier boxes not only caromed back and fell below, it bounced so far that it hit the Yankee dugout roof and made the field.
Defensively, Gary Sheffield made a nice catch against the right field wall on the last pitch Mussina threw (to Burroughs) to close the visitors’ third, and Gary pegged out speedster Kerry Robinson trying to sprint to third from first on Terrence Long’s single in the seventh. The Scoreboard, by the way, coined a phrase to describe that play, revealing that the official scoring was “single, then 9-5 outstretching.” Giambi failed on two close plays on foul pops, Jeter made a nice catch on a soft Robinson liner to short left in the fifth, and second baseman Wilson looked fabulous diving for Long’s bouncer up the middle in the sixth and pegging him out.
But lest you think that this was a proud night for the Yankee defense, we’ll need to talk about the tainted run the Pods plated on Mussina before he left. Moose had retired the first seven visitors when Robinson beat out an infield single in the third, with Wilson making another good play in a futile attempt to get him. Robinson broke for second on a 2-2 to Greene, and the merry-go-round began. Perhaps the Yankees knew that the Marx Brothers classic film A Day at the Races was released on June 11, 1937, because things immediately got a little slapstick. Posada’s throw hit Robinson sliding in (or perhaps he slid into the throw is the better way to say it). Due to this carom the ball headed into short left rather than center field where overthrows usually end up. Matsui charged as Robinson sped for third, but Hideki did not throw there (wisely) or toward home (less wisely), but to Wilson at second. When the low toss caromed off the bag and bounded a few feet away, Kerry scored on the second miscue on the play.
Mussina looked absolutely fabulous, and it apppeared the run the Pods managed to get in the third-inning mayhem was not likely to be repeated, as they were just not hitting him. Assuming Eaton would have pitched just as well with the pressure that facing Mike would have applied, the Yankee chances were good anyway. But injuries happen, and the Yanks needed someone to step up. Heredia looked understandably rusty, and the three tallies he allowed were the difference. The series concludes with the recently shaky John Lieber going Saturday, and the dominant Vazquez facing returning David Wells on Sunday. The weatherman promises fair skies and sunshine. Let’s hope the Yanks follow this 10-2 unevenly played defeat with two well-pitched, well-played games, just as they followed up the 9-1 loss to San Diego in the opener two years ago.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!