Bronx, N.Y., August 30, 2003 — I knew I would be annoyed when I sat down to watch the Yankees/Red Sox game on Fox TV’s national feed Saturday afternoon. But I expected it would be a tense and closely fought contest, and I anticipated a low-scoring game too. Two out of three ain’t bad.

The game could not have been more gripping. Although I sat glued to the tube for four hours, I felt it was early when Johnson retired Varitek to end it, because I could have sworn that four hours easily passed during the Red Sox three-run eighth inning all by itself. That inning, and the three-run first, were ugly, they were painful. Red Sox fans can take solace in the fact that they have a veteran ballclub that knows how to take advantage of other teams’ mistakes. What they can’t claim, however, is that they ever had pinned the Yankees to the wall with their dominating offense in this one. Their bats showed more meek than might, but they did flash some very opportunistic wood.

Nomar Garciaparra had another great day at the plate, starting with a triple that should have placed him at third in a scoreless game with two out in the first, but instead scored two and put him in line to score the third Red Sox run on almost anything, once Andy Pettitte had thrown away Bill Mueller’s one-hop double-play grounder preceding his at bat. David Ortiz once again did damage against the Yankees from the DH spot. And a newcomer to this age-old feud, Dave McCarty, deserves kudos for hanging tough and stroking a hard double late in the game.

But it was the Yankees who wielded the killer lumber this day, both with Posada’s two long bombs, and the relentless string of singles (and some doubles) off the bats of the Yankees’ infielders, particularly the two on the right side. Nick and Enrique stroked seven of the 15 Yankee hits, drove in six of the 10 runs, and scored twice themselves. Jeter singled and doubled, and Aaron Boone doubled twice. But Johnson, ironically, did not score on the day, a fact attributable to the one scratch single (along with a hbp, walk and sac fly) to come out of the third, fourth, and fifth spots in the Yankee order.

A glance at Andy Pettitte’s no.-7 dominated line on the day (seven strikes outs, seven hits, compiled in seven innings) does not tell the tale of the yeoman work he contributed in steamy Fenway on a hot Labor Day weekend Saturday afternoon. From a Yankee standpoint, the game almost got off to a great start, but when Jeter lined Pedro Martinez’s first pitch hard to right, Trot Nixon, shading that way, made a great play to dive and grab it for the first out. Nick Johnson followed with the first of his four safeties, but Giambi fouled out and Williams struck out, and Yankee fans had the feeling that a real opportunity against Pedro had been missed.

The Yankees failed to threaten in the second, but the three consecutive strike outs Pedro managed spanning the first two frames began the relentless pitch count climb that would overtake him and end his day trailing 5-4, after Bernie Williams bounced out to first unassisted to close the fourth. The early Yankee scoring had all begun with another Enrique Wilson base hit off Martinez, to left field with one out in the third. Jeter did the same at 1-2, and Nick Johnson drove one home with a hard line double down the right field line. After Martinez hit Jason Giambi with a 1-1 pitch, Yankee fans at home and in Fenway were poised to leap for joy when Bernie followed with a long drive toward the monster in left center, but felt they had missed another big chance against Pedro as they had to content themselves with a second run once Kapler held on to Williams’s drive after colliding with Johnny Damon.

Garciaparra led off the bottom of the third with a second long drive to center, this one tracked down by Williams, but Ortiz made Pettitte pay for going to another three-ball count (3-1) by blasting the next pitch deep beyond and to the right of the Red Sox bullpen in right. But Pettitte stiffened, retiring Millar and Varitek on a grounder and strike out, and Jorge Posada came to bat leading off the Yankee fourth. Fox was right on the case reporting that Posada had excelled in 2003 when leading off an inning, but I was ahead of them in realizing that the two-run third had cost Pedro 27 pitches, and Jorge got things going for the visitors with a 1-0 blast over the wall in right on Martinez’s 55th pitch.

The suddenly resurgent Aaron Boone doubled off the monster in eight pitches and Karim Garcia moved him 90 feet with a single to right on an 0-2 Martinez toss. The supremely confident Wilson singled past Lou Merloni at second for a 4-4 tie, and Nick Johnson fouled off a third strike four times before singling hard to left center for the lead. Martinez escaped further damage by retiring Giambi and Williams and trudged tiredly off the moungd totally spent on the 87 pitches it had taken him to retire the Bombers four times.

Pettitte, meanwhile, had found something. He was mixing his pitches, hard and soft, in and out, mostly down but a few up, and followed his first strike out that closed the third with two more to start the fourth. He didn’t wilt when the just-returned Boston favorite Lou Merloni made a bid for extra bases on a long drive to right center that was expertly tracked down on a brilliant catch by Karim Garcia, and he sandwiched fifth-inning, back-to-back singles by Garciaparra and Ortiz with strike outs of the like-sounding Mueller and Millar to preserve the lead. Reconstructing how the game eventually panned out, it was huge that he retired the Sox in order in the sixth and seventh on 23 pitches, because it is uncertain if there were any more outs to be had from the Yankee bullpen this day than the six they finally managed.

Boston and Grady Little found something in young Bronson Arroyo, who came out to start the fifth. When he walked Matsui as his first batter on five pitches, I fully expected the Yanks to pile it on, but Matsui was doubled off on Posada’s liner to second and Arroyo was on his way. After the lead-off walk, he retired nine of 10 Yanks, only breaking his string when he hit Jeter with a pitch with two outs in the sixth. Grady Little gets a lot of credit for sticking with the young righty, but loses much of it for keeping him out there a bit too long. Bronson struck out Posada to start the eighth, but Aaron Boone smacked his second double and Enrique Wilson delivered him with his third hit, a two-out single to right, once Alan Embree had come on and retired Ruben Sierra pinch hitting for Garcia.

Any Yankee fans feeling comfortable at that moment because the one-run lead they had enjoyed for three innings had been doubled just haven’t seen enough games in Fenway Park. Jeter stroked a 1-1 pitch for a double to deep right, and Torre came out and argued that Wilson should be allowed to score from first even though the ball had hopped high over the fence and then off some fans in the first row. Despite the pronouncement from Fox’s Tim McCarver that the two bases were automatic, I know that I have seen umpires award a third base when in their judgement the runner would have scored, but Joe and I lost our argument, and Enrique had to go back to third. “Make it academic, Nick,” I screamed at the TV screen as Johnson strode to the plate, and on the 1-0 pitch, that’s exactly what he did, scoring two on a hard single to just left of center.

The Bombers battled Pedro into throwing 27 and 33 pitches in the third and fourth, respectively, and Arroyo and Ambree for 24 in the three-run eighth, but that was nothing next to the 48 the Sox coaxed from Nelson, White, and Rivera in the home eighth. But even though Garciaparra doubled leading off the eighth against Jeff Nelson, the next four batters barely reached a base with a struck ball (two fouls down first and a pop to short), and the Yanks should have been out of there scoreless too. Ortiz fouled off a strike-three pitch before walking, Millar bounced to short too meekly to be doubled up, and Varitek looked bad taking, then swinging, at strike one and two before Nelson hit him with a misdirected slurve to load the bases.

But the Red Sox still had life once Gabe White coaxed a harmless pop out of Todd Walker, hitting for Kapler, and McCarty made the Yankees pay. He stroked his double after fouling off four potential strike three’s from Mariano Rivera in much the same way Nick Johnson, Enrique Wilson, and Jorge Posada were hitting pitches all day in big moments. A clearly struggling Rivera then walked Merloni on eight pitches and Damon on seven to force in a third run, but he came back to whiff Bill Mueller on a high fastball to preserve a one-run lead.

And now it was time for the Sox to use their closer too, to keep it close so they could stage another comeback in the ninth. And Kim started OK, as Bernie bounced out to Nomar. But Matsui legged out a soft grounder up the middle for a base hit and Jorge came to bat with the Yanks in need of some insurance. Tino Martrinez reached Kim for a two-run tying homer on the at bat’s first pitch on October 31, 2001, as the latter tried to close World Series Game Four, and Scott Brosius did the same the very next day on a 1-0 count. And so I was predicting that if Jorge were to do anything good against the submarining righty, he would have to do it early too. But I’ll forgive Jorge for making me look bad, as his laser shot to dead center that forged the game’s final score didn’t come until the sixth pitch, a 3-2 fastball that just hung there.

So it was a day of heroes and villains, of great offense, good and bad pitching. It lasted into the evening and the two sides combined by throwing 337 pitches and scoring 17 runs. Fox drove me crazy all day as McCarver carried on and a Dick Stocton who clearly had his mind more on Sunday football constantly flubbed the score, the team names, and referred to the rested Yankee second baseman as Rafael and Mariano Soriano, but never as Alfonso.

But Alfonso sat, Enrique excelled, Nick Johnson showed off that sweet swing, Jorge played bombs way, while Derek and Aaron kept the line moving. But Andy Pettitte put us in the hole and he, I feel, more than anyone else, righted the Yankee ship. I once saw Scott Kamieniecki start three straight batters off with a 3-0 count and retire them all. Andy was already trailing, 3-0 in Fenway, when he fell behind both Merloni and Damon, 3-0, leading off the home second. I hold it against him not even a little bit that he only fell behind Bill Mueller 2-0 before retiring him, and the side. If he hadn’t turned it around, this would be a very different column.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!