Bronx, N.Y., August 8, 2004 — To read the headlines in the New York papers all summer you could be excused for thinking that this Yankee team has been an unwieldy machine with a decided need for fixing. The two-headed centerfielder is too old (whatever his number); they have no second baseman; their pen is overworked; injury and illness at first base will kill their chances; the starters are old and prone to injury.
But team defense has been superb, and center field has been at least adequate; the outfield in general is carrying the offense. The two guys who spend time at second both provide sparks, one more with his glove and the other with his bat. Mariano Rivera and Tom Gordon have been routinely excellent all year, warming to their regular use, even if their recent mini-vacation has us all sighing in relief. And Quantrill, apparently, really does need to pitch all the time. The team has DL’d two first basemen, but has received excellent play from Tony Clark, and Mr. Olerud has taken to Bronx play like he is from “the street.”
But the direst proclamations have been delivered in reference to the starting staff. The claims and concerns have been with age, with recent physical problems, with inconsistency, with a paucity of reliable backup, and with a young stud who might not be able to carry the load while others struggled. True to these fears, all of that has come to pass. Two stalwarts have been DL’d for considerable time, Osborne has been banished, Halsey sent back down, and Contreras plies his trade in the Second City now. And the argument that may have most enraged the doubters in the Bronx was the 2002 signing of John Lieber. The owner of one 20-game-winning season for the Cubs, the righty relied on little but guile and precision before elbow reconstruction. On what, the Bronx doubting Thomases argued, would Lieber base his game? He already threw the kind of game many post-surgery guys try to take up before he went under the knife.
But although Lieber has battled to a 7-7 mark through the season’s first four months, and he was routinely slapped around by the A’s last time out, he has proven this year that he knows how to pitch. He hits bats, this righty, and when he’s on, the confluence of cowhide and wood brings him much more satisfaction than it does the guys swinging the lumber. He allowed 11 hits and a walk while managing just 13 outs five days ago, but on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, he just joined teammates Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, and Orlando Hernandez by spinning eight innings of eye-popping pitching in an 8-2 Yankee win over Toronto.
He retired the Jays on three quick groundballs after the 1:11 first pitch, a few minutes delayed because there were two National Anthems to play. By the time he toed the mound again, he had a 4-0 lead.
Jays starter Miguel Batista had not pitched in Yankee Stadium since November 2001 in the World Series, and then he did so masterfully. Only three Yankees from that team still start in New York, two this day with Posada being given another day to recover from the bump and grind. Derek Jeter garnered one of five singles off Batista in that October Classic thriller, a game extended to extra frames by a ninth-inning Scott Brosius home run, and won in 12 on an Alfonso Soriano single.
The Yankee shortstop singled off Chris Woodward’s glove with one down in the first this day. But Batista looked to be escaping the mini-threat when he caught Gary Sheffield looking on five tosses and went 0-2 on Alex Rodriguez. He hit A-Rod with the next pitch, however, and when Matsui singled on a swinging bunt toward short on a 3-1 pitch, the home team had the bases filled. Bernie Williams worked a walk off Miguel back in 2001, and his eighth-inning single sent Batista to the showers. As designated hitter Sunday, Williams looked at an outside pitch, then drilled a no-doubt-about it tracer over the Armitron sign in the right field bleachers. 4-0 Yanks.
Carlos Delgado promptly quieted the crowd in the second with a leadoff double, one of two on the day, largely accounting for both Toronto runs. But Lieber recovered, and once Eric Hinske delivered the Blue Jays first baseman with a bloop single to left, John retired 11 of 13, the two reaching on a Jeter error and catcher’s interference by Flaherty back-to-back in the fifth. The Jays worked two hits into a run in the sixth, but that was it, as Lieber scurried to match the work the fans in New York are being accustomed to seeing after the last few days.
The Yanks were not done after Bernie’s bomb. Olerud doubled home Matsui and Williams, on via a single and walk respectively, in the third, and Gary Sheffield’s blast off the Empire Health board on the upper deck facade in left plated Lofton for an eight-run Yankee total in the fourth. And the Yanks brought their gloves too. Olerud made a fine play leaping to catch a high Jeter toss and come down on first base off young Alex Rios leading off the game, Matsui made a running catch on Zahn in the fourth, and Lofton covered some ground in the gaps running down Woodward’s drive toward right and Rios’s toward left, back-to-back to close the fifth frame. Flaherty recovered well on a Zahn roller in front of the plate in the second, but the capper on the day was the Enrique Wilson body dive that robbed Hinske of a two-run single to right in the sixth. A run scored as Wilson threw to first from the ground for the out, and then he retired left fielder Gross on a more routine play for the third out.
For those of us who have struggled with him all year, but who have enjoyed Bernie Williams’s inevitable and relentless climb up the ladder of individual Yankee career offensive performances, it was a delight to see him double twice Friday, single in two runs on Saturday and go yard for the jackpot this day. Four years ago on August 8, he joined with David Justice for a two-pitch, two-home-run, bottom of the ninth onslaught against Jason Isringhausen of the A’s that changed a 3-2 loss into a 4-3 win. It was a marvelous come-from-behind win, but such wins have become the specialty of the 2004 team. The fans in the Bronx were just as happy that the Yanks broke out on top and coasted this time, winning cleanly with a little less dramatics.
So John Lieber has righted himself, and in doing so he has thrown the future of the Yankee rotation into a whirling confusion. With Brown looking totally renewed, el duque staging the reincarnation of Cy Young every five days, Vazquez throwing hard, and Mussina on a rehab on Tuesday, it’s time to stop the wagering on what out-of-town arms will be brought into the Yankee rotation. The stakes are just as high, but now the bet is not who will join the starting five in September, and pitch among the big four one month later, but rather who won’t. Newly arrived Esteban Loaiza gets his shot tomorrow afternoon as the homestand comes to a close.
The last three Yankee starters had each gone eight innings in succession, allowing three runs and 15 hits in those games. Lieber equaled them in innings, gave up two tallies, and upped the ante on hits-per-inning as he allowed but four. He threw 75 of 106 pitches for strikes, with 20 first-pitch strikes to 31 batters. Against the A’s Lieber not only allowed 11 hits, he only managed six swinging strikes. On Sunday he used the 13 contact-less flails to record five strike outs to go with 13 grounders and two popups.
On August 8, 1876, inventor Thomas Edison patented the mimeograph. It was considered a tremendous advance that people could finally copy maps, recipes, game plans, strategies for success, etc., once they had found their way. The Yanks appear to have found their 2004 template. The league had better beware.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!