Bronx, N.Y., August 11, 2005 — The Yankees won just one of three classic matchups against the team with the best record in baseball to begin this week and a seven-game homestand. They were pitching duels all, and the White Sox escaped the Bronx with two wins despite scoring a paltry six runs in three days; the Yanks took just one, and scored only five times. Thursday night they looked to keep up the great pitching, play a good game, and treat another sellout crowd to crisply played, intense baseball. They failed more than they succeded, but they came away with a win.

I watched the Monday battle from the comfort of the living room sofa, but the Stadium was a pleasant place to be Tuesday evening with cool breezes and dry air the order of the night. The sun warmed and dazzled the Wednesday afternoon throng. The humidity was bearable, and a smattering of high clouds treated us to intermittent breaks from the rays. While the Yanks attempted to start a winning streak Thursday, the weather saw a short string of nice days end. In the steamy conditions, harried fans arrived amid transit nightmares. Taking its cue from the unpleasant air, the big Scoreboard failed to give pitch counts or speeds. The out-of-town boards down each line reported that the already concluded Mets/Padres game was tied 1-1 in the fourth, and that the D’backs had beaten the Marlins by the score of 0-0. The baseball was less crisp, the pitching varied, and the crowd agonized over every unfortunate bounce all night.

Hopefully not lost in all of this was the superb job turned in by emergency spot starter Scott Proctor, who was only nicked for three runs because the batter he overpowered for his last strike out reached first base and scored off Alan Embree after the young righthander had departed. Texas Rangers left fielder (and ex-Yank, briefly) David Dellucci reached Scott for two singleton home runs, but he retired 15 of the other 17 batters he faced. Only the high hard strike out pitch that eluded Jorge Posada giving Rod Barajas first and a single by Alfonso Soriano marred the pattern. Not to nitpick, but if truth be told, Yankee left fielder Hideki Matsui should have corraled the second of Dellucci’s home runs. Before fizzling early in the steam, the Scoreboard pitch indicator credited Proctor with a few 95 mph fastballs, and he managed 50 strikes among his 76 pitches. The Rangers swung and missed 10 times, and Proctor pounded them for 13 of 18 first-pitch strikes.

The best that can be said about the four hurlers who followed Proctor to the mound is that they somehow got the ball into Mariano Rivera’s hands with a one-run lead, though Proctor’s chance for a win headed south just as Rangers shortstop Michael Young’s three-run seventh-inning home run on Tanyon Sturtze’s first pitch did. It cleared the wall in right (it’s to the south, while left heads northward) and tied the game at 8-8 after the young starter had left the mound with a 6-2 lead. Alan Embree followed Proctor by allowing back-to-back hits, but at least he joined Proctor and Rivera as the only three home-team hurlers to throw more strikes than balls. Felix Rodriguez, Sturtze, and Tom Gordon surrendered the only four walks Texas would get. The Rangers needed (and almost got) all the help they could get; their third through sixth hitters went 2-for-19 with one rbi.

But thankfully this was not the Chicago White Sox, and the only similarity Rangers starter John Wasdin has with Orlando Hernandez, Jose Contreras, and Freddy Garcia is that they all throw with their right hands. Wasdin escaped the first of Derek Jeter’s two doubles (and three extra base hits) leading off the Yankee first with help from home plate ump Tom Hallion, who called Gary Sheffield out on strikes on a pitch so far outside that catcher Rod Barajas did well to stop it, much less even attempt to peg to third as Derek stole the base. Hard-hit balls off Yankee bats drove centerfielder Gary Matthews to the wall in the second, and Dellucci happened to be standing in front of two line drives in left field as well.

The Yanks finally broke though on a Matsui rbi single in the third, and they took the lead on Robby Cano’s fourth-inning two-run double to the left center field gap. A Matsui homer leading off the fifth drove Wasdin from the mound, but southpaw reliever Ramirez plunked Jason Giambi with a pitch before a Jorge Posada homer to left gave the Yanks a four-run lead at 6-2. But Texas halved that against Proctor and Embree in the sixth only to have the Yanks tack on two more on a Matsui fielder’s choice and Tino Martinez’s sac fly, all set up by a balk, two walks and a Michael Young throwing error.

Fans who breathed a little easier were wrong to do so however. After following Embree and ending the Rangers sixth by coaxing a hard Soriano liner right to Matsui in left, Felix Rodriguez went 3-1 on DH Phil Nevin to start the seventh. He got Nevin on a comebacker but walked Gary Matthews and was reached for a single, a double, and a run after an infield pop. Joe Torre summoned Sturtze, but Young crushed Tanyon’s high outside fastball to right and the game was tied.

Joe Torre’s raggedy bunch was splitting at the seams, but the fans turned to two long-standing Yankee heroes, and neither disappointed. First Captain Derek Jeter capped a great night at the plate with a tie-breaking homer to right leading off the home seventh off veteran James Baldwin. With the eighth inning reached, Torre turned to Flash Gordon, who started well. He got two ground ball outs, the second a fine Robby Cano spear of Nevin’s bid for a single to right. But Gary Matthews flailed a weak hopper down first and got to the bag before Gordon could muster an effective throw. Flash then lost his control, filling the bases by walking two on eight of 10 pitches off the plate.

Torre had no choice; he called in Mariano Rivera, off a two-inning outing in the sun the day before. When Dellucci strode to the plate he was working on a 4-for-4 night, with the two homers and four runs scored, and Rivera fell to 3-1 with nowhere to put him. But he got back-to-back fouls, and the second failed to make the stands behind home plate, where Posada squeezed it for the third out. Mariano closed it out with two ninth-inning strike outs and a fly to right around a Teixeira broken-bat single to left, whiffing Soriano on high cheese at 10:43 pm.

Was it an entertaining win? I’d choose another word, though a baseball observer with no rooting interest would have recognized it as poorly pitched, but exciting. And that’s too bad really, because the Yanks won this one largely because their first and last of six pitchers did a very good job. The contest featured six home runs, on this the day in 1929 that Babe Ruth hit his 500th; Reggie Jackson blasted his 400th on the same day in 1980. But I’ll take the offense off two losses in which the home team manged two runs over 19 arduous innings.

It was on August 11, 1964, that the Beatles’ black-and-white classic movie A Hard Day’s Night opened in New York. I used that title for a column six weeks ago after the Yanks struggled to take two of seven from the lowly Devil Rays and the crosstown Mets. But I think Thursday night’s contest qualifies too. With a first pitch at 7:08, this battle stretched to three hours and 35 minutes, an eerily significant number. Because before it was all over, 11 different pitchers combined to throw 335 pitches.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!