Bronx, N.Y., May 9, 2006 — To many attending Tuesday night’s Yankee game against the Red Sox, the big fear was that the weather would ruin the festivities. I arrived in the Bronx via the 4 Train at 6:32, 37 minutes before first pitch, in an intermittent light rain that threatened to become much more. But the rain had subsided by the time I took my seat, and although the evening ended much cooler than the 61 degrees at which it began, the weather played just a small part in how the game would transpire, with one glaring exception.
Highlights of the five straight road wins before this night were shown on the Diamond Vision pregame, and then sax player Richie Cannata played the National Anthem. Kevin Youkulis got the Sox off well by battling Yankee starter Randy Johnson to a nine-pitch walk, but Mark Loretta bounced into a 4-4-3. Johnson coaxed a bouncer to short after another walk, and the Yanks came to bat against Josh Beckett, whom they last faced (and lost to) in the deciding game of the 2003 World Series.
Although Johnny Damon also battled for seven pitches, he struck out, but Captain Derek Jeter won an eight-pitch contest and singled up the middle. When home plate ump Charlie Relaford stood quiet and motionless after a 3-1 offering to third-place hitter Jason Giambi, the Yankee first baseman took steps toward first. Scribes all around the ballpark recorded the walk, before Relaford apparently changed — or made up — his mind, and gave a belated strike sign. Forced to continue his at bat, Giambi turned on Beckett’s next fastball and drilled it over the short porch in right for a 2-0 lead. The Yanks scored no more in the frame, but they pushed Beckett to 30 pitches and seemed to have him reeling.
Both Johnson (7 pitches) and Beckett (8) zipped through the second, with Yankee DH Bernie Williams taking a third strike to close it on yet another Relaford delayed strike call. After a tense first, the teams seemed set for a contentious and tight battle, and then Johnson threw a first-pitch ball to Sox center fielder Dustin Mohr at 7:46. Little did I realize that my 37 minutes of enjoyment were over.
Despite the two walks in the first, Randy had dispatched the Sox through two on 26 tosses, but the tenuous command he had through the first seven batters abandoned him totally. With batters grumbling all night at a generous strike zone that had nine of 13 strike-out victims on both sides going down watching, even Relaford and his late reconsiderations couldn’t help. Johnson appeared to not be finishing his pitches, his fastball consistently sailed wide and high to Terry Francona’s mostly right-handed-hitting lineup. Without a reliable heater to keep the hitters honest, they searched for and feasted on Johnson’s slider or just-get-it-over fastballs on the rare occasions they approached the plate.
Sax player Cantatta, who got the festivities going, has been playing with Billy Joel to a string of sold-out shows of late, and Tuesday was “the Piano Man’s” 57th birthday. It also would have been the 741st birthday of Dante Alighieri. If you’re not familiar with the classic Dante’s Inferno, let me tell you that from a baseball standpoint, beginning with the top of the third, Yankee fans had to withstand a similar series of nine rings or circles of “the abyss” before this one came to a close.
Circle One: Aftter Mohr smacked Johnson’s 2-0 offering for a single, .207-hitting number-nine batter Alex Gonzalez worked him for a walk. Left fielder Hideki Matsui appeared to save the day with a great shoestring catch on Youkulis’s liner, and Loretta moved the runners up with a soft roller to the second-base hole. Then Johnson coaxed the hard grounder he needed to 2005 MVP Alex Rodriguez, but Alex stumbled, lost the ball briefly, and then fired to first late for an error. 2-1.
Circle Two was a quicky. Johnson’s next pitch soared high and off the top of Jorge Posada’s glove, and the Sox had tied the score on a single, walk, error, and wild pitch. Manny Ramirez singled for a 3-2 lead, but that comes with the baseball-fan territory. More worrying is that Johnson fell to 3-0 to the next two batters, walking Jason Varitek before recovering to strike Mike Lowell out and close a beastly 39-pitch inning.
Circle Three: While Becket was retiring 12 consecuive Yankee batters, the last 10 on 37 pitches, Johnson walked Mohr after a strike out in the fourth. Gonzalez singled him to second before a Youkulis strike out, but Randy’s next pitch was so high and hard that Posada failed to touch it at all, and the runners advanced. Johnson fell to 3-0, and contact hitter Loretta lashed out at another get-it-over fastball, singling for two. David Ortiz smacked the next pitch the opposite way for a double to end Johnson’s night.
Circle Four: Aaron Small came on, and had a classic battle with Ramirez. After a swinging strike, Manny fouled off seven of the next 10 pitches. As the wind picked up, the temperature suddenly plummeted. Small apparently won the battle as Ramirez popped to short right. Robinson Cano took a few stumbling steps toward short center just as the ball was carried dramatically back to the right. Promoted for tonight’s game to take Gary Sheffield’s place after the regular right fielder went to the DL with a bad wrist, Melky Cabrera has done nothing but field well and hit the cover off the ball since a failed debut in the Bronx last year. Bright sun appeared to undo him in the outfield then, so it could have been a good omen that his 2006 debut was in a night game. It could have been, but it wasn’t. The swirling wind played him like a puppet. He stumbled under the ball, it fell into his glove for a brief moment, then popped out for the second Yankee error of the game. 7-2.
Circle Five: Small closed the frame on a strike out, and coaxed a 1-1 bouncer to third to start the fifth. But it glanced off A-Rod’s glove for another error. Small compounded things by walking Trot Nixon, batting for Mohr with one down, so Aaron grooved a 1-2 pitch to, again, light-hitting Gonzalez. He blasted it to left for a 10-2 lead. Ramirez made it 11 runs by homering on Small’s first pitch of the sixth, but Manny’s a power hitter. It hurt but felt better than a leadoff walk would have.
Circle Six: The Yanks tried to rally. Cano broke Beckett’s string of 12 straight with a one-out double over Nixon to right center in the fifth. Bernie Williams struck out after taking another two strikes he couldn’t believe, but Cabrera singled in Cano. When Damon took a 1-2 fastball, Beckett had struck out the side around the one-run rally, two of them on called strikes. Jeter argued after being called out as well to start the sixth, but fans awakened as Giambi beat the shift with a sharp single over second. But A-Rod rapped the next pitch into a 5-4-3.
Circle Seven: Although he allowed two walks, a hit batter, and two hits over the seventh and eighth, Ron Villone “held” the Sox at 11 with 37 pitches. Posada singled with one down in the seventh, but after a fielder’s choice, Bernie took an 0-2 pitch and was called out again. He got Relaford’s attention by flipping his bat back, but couldn’t stop there and threw his batting helmet too. He was tossed.
Circle Eight actually provided a bit of comic relief, as comic as it could get this night anyway. Joe Torre had decided to substitute with Bubba Crosby in center, Kelly Stinnett behind the plate, and Miguel Cairo for the much-maligned A-Rod at third. As they were announced, he confronted Relaford about the Williams ejection. Neither probably knew that in a May 9, 1903 12-5 thumping by the Boston Pilgrims, two New York Highlanders were thrown out of the game, one for arguing balls and strikes. His name? Williams. While Torre talked to Relaford between innings, there was no Yankee infield practice. On seeing that Cairo was entering the game, Giambi assumed his night was over, as Cairo, Jeter, and Cano waited for him to come out. By the time Joe noticed and signaled Jason to play first, it was time to play ball.
Circle Nine: Tanyon Sturtze. Torre has been trying to get him over the hump with regular work, but aside from one decent outing in Texas, it hasn’t been working out. But this night he was extra-bad. After Loretta opened the ninth with a 5-3, five of the next six Boston batters stroked hits for three more runs. 14-3. It took Tanyon 37 pitches to muddle through until Gonzalez flied to Matsui to close it.
I often say that you see something brand-new at the ballpark almost every time you go. And I’m right too. But if I’ve given the impression that it is always enjoyable, well, I’m wrong there.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!