Bronx, N.Y., September 2, 2004 — Jon Lieber displayed two very likable traits on the Yankee Stadium mound in a 9-1 Yankee victory Thursday night. First, he pitched like a guy who knew how to use the fielders behind him, a man comfortable with his stuff and not afraid to throw it over the plate. And second, he threw like a guy who found himself with an early 6-0 lead.

And a half-dozen-run early lead is exactly what he had. The Yanks came out threatening to repay Cleveland for the 22-0 drubbing Tuesday in kind, jumping on Cliff Lee for one tally in the first, and five more in the second. Jorge Posada singled in Derek Jeter after the former’s one-out first inning walk, and then Hideki Matsui got the second inning started with a single to right on a 3-2 pitch. The Yanks barely slowed down as Tony Clark took a third strike (he would strike out three times subbing for Olerud), and when Lee hit Cairo with the next pitch, the inning was set up. Bernie Williams and Gary Sheffield smacked rbi singles to left around a Jeter swinging strike out, and Alex Rodriguez strode to the plate with a 3-0 lead, two on, two out, and a dreadful 2004 record hitting with runners in scoring position.

A-Rod took a ball, then a strike, then two more off the plate. He swung and missed at the fifth Lee offering, and fouled off the next. But Lee’s seventh pitch found too much of the plate, and Rodriguez did not miss it, sending a high fly deep into the left field seats, just a few feet short of striking the Tier facade on the way down. The surprisingly small crowd went berserk, as Eric Wedge strode to the mound and sent Lee on his way. The Yanks would add single runs in the next two innings, and three all told, but this game was over early.

Even before the Yankee offense exploded with all the support, Lieber was throwing strikes from the outset, and he didn’t let the hard single Omar Vizquel smacked off Alex Rodriguez’s glove on an 0-2 pitch with one down in the first deter him from his game plan. And he was rewarded almost immediately. Once Marcus Lawton fouled off two 2-2 pitches during the ensuing at bat, Vizquel broke for second and Lawton’s liner right to Miguel Cairo at second started the easiest double play you’ll ever see.

And those two quick outs established another pattern, as Miguel Cairo got his hand in on 11 of the 27 Indians’ outs. Once you subtract the five strike outs earned by Yankee pitching (three by Lieber, two by a strong-looking Steve Karsay in the ninth), that’s fully half of the outs the Indians hit into. This game didn’t end until Miguel squeezed Ben Broussard’s popup to end it two hours and 40 minutes after it began, and it was fitting that Miguel’s glove did the honors. With Lieber pounding low inside and outside strikes all night, 17 Indians were retired by infielders. The singles came regularly, but not as often as the ground ball outs. In fact, due to the Lawton double play liner, the first inning was the only one after which Lieber did not leave a man on base.

My scorecard has a space for a double-box entry under each inning, the box on the left for hits, the other for runners left on base. When Lieber’s night was over after seven, the card read like a binary-code printout from an old Hewlett Packard mainframe. With Vizguel removed in the first, and Jon’s only walk (with no hits) to Travis Hafner in the second, these 14 boxes (alternating the number of hits with those left on base) under Lieber’s seven frames read like this:

1-0-0-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Lieber had faith in both his own stuff and in his teammates, and he was rewarded handsomely. His 67/34 strikes/balls breakdown was perfect, and he threw 17 of 27 first pitches for strikes. He used the 42 pitches the Indians struck with their bats to get his outs, getting only one swinging strike out (with two more called by home plate umpire Chuck Meriwether).

Joe Torre called on Paul Quantrill to pitch the eighth. Crisp lined his first pitch deep to Sheffield in right, and Vizquel singled hard through the second base hole next. But that man Cairo was on the case yet again, as he snagged Lawton’s 1-1 bouncer and turned it into the Cleveland left fielder’s second double play of the night. Then Steve Karsay finally made his 2004 major league debut after missing most of two years, striding to the Yankee Stadium mound to pitch the ninth. He surrendered a high home run to the short porch in right on his first pitch to Victor Martinez. But fans hardly had the chance to regret the loss of the shutout, because Steve looked strong closing it out on back-to-back strike outs and the final popup to Cairo at second.

As for the nine-run explosion, well, as one who sat through the Tuesday carnage, the number of runs was comforting, and the fact that they came early brought joy and dancing. Kudos to Posada for starting it with first-inning single, and to Matsui for starting the big second-inning rally with his base hit. Bernie Williams makes the offensive hero list with two hits, as of course does the aforementioned Alex Rodriguez and his three-run bomb. And there is Mr. Cairo yet again as well. Rather than resting up from the string of grounders, he homered for the second straight night, had two hits, and scored three times.

But there is another name that needs to be called, a familiar one when discussing 2004 Yankee offensive exploits. Right fielder Sheffield managed three hard hits to left along with a string of screaming fouls to the Tier seats. And with his fourth-inning double past Lawton in left, he delivered Derek Jeter from second with Gary’s 100th rbi of the year.

But Sheffield is not one to rest on his laurels, nor does he bask long in numbers achieved along the way. When thinking about the approach and the presence of the guy we’ve taken to calling “Shef” in the Bronx, it is perhaps fitting to quote the famous Teddy Roosevelt line, one he used 97 years ago on September 2 (and other times as well). “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick,” Roosevelt advised. Sheffield has let his bat do much of his talking in this, his first year playing in New York. But how did he respond to reaching the century mark in runs batted in in a season that still has 31 days left?

He calmly knocked in number 101 two at bats later.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!