Bronx, N.Y., May 27, 2005 — Boston knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who was performing as expected in totally flummoxing the Yankee lineup in the opening game of three in Yankee Stadium Friday night, reacted angrily to first-base ump Hunter Wendelstedt as Derek Jeter and he nearly collided during an attempted 3-6-1 on a force out off the Yankee shortstop’s grounder in the third inning. The frustration was surprising as the Boston righthander was breezing through the Yankee lineup until Boston grabbed a mid-game lead, but if controlling the Yankee bats was coming easy, directing his pitches wasn’t, and the difficulty worsened as the innings passed.

Wakefield had the Yankees turning in one soft ugly out after another through four scoreless innings while titular Yankee ace Randy Johnson struggled with his command while keeping the game scoreless. The only hit the home team mustered through four was a Jorge Posada single in the second, and Derek Jeter’s liner to right leading off the first (he was retired on a nice sprawling catch from Jay Payton) and Bernie Williams’s liner to center to close the second with two on were the only other well-struck balls the Yanks managed. Wakefield’s flutter ball has flustered the Yanks before, but rarely more effectively.

Lefty batters (not switch hitters) appeared to have the worst time, and Hideki Matsui (who lost a hit streak this night) led the lame-out parade with a roller to first and a pop to third. But Tino Martinez contested with a foul pop to the catcher and a strike out, Tony Womack hit a “can of corn”-type fly to center and went down swinging, and rookie second sacker Robinson Cano bounced to second twice, even if the first one leading off the home third was bobbled and poorly thrown by Mark Bellhorn for an error.

The righty bats were more of a problem, mostly because Tim couldn’t master that strike zone. After Jeter’s hard liner in the first, the Captain scored the first Yankee run after a fifth-inning lead-off triple to left center. Four of Wakefield’s first five (of seven) walks were to righty sluggers Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez, and A-Rod reached courtesy of a hit by pitch as well. After retiring six of eight through two on just 24 pitches, Wakefield’s battles with his control grew, as did his pitch count. He allowed a walk and a single in a 19-pitch third, two free passes leading to 20 throws in the fourth, and the triple, two walks, and A-Rod’s hit by pitch in the fifth for yet another 28 pitches. The Yanks left two, two, two, and three on base from the second through the fifth. Fan groans at scoring chances wasted notwithstanding, it was growing increasingly obvious that the home team was one big hit from breaking Tim and sending him to the showers. That breakthrough would come from an unlikely source.

Randy Johnson, meanwhile, was having his own problems. He coaxed a broken-bat roller to second from Johnny Damon to lead off the game, but when Robinson Cano mishandled it, The Unit was in for a tough inning. Following two quick strikes, then a ball, to shortstop Felix Renteria, home plate ump Bruce Froemming started his right arm moving forward on the 1-2 pitch, but he changed his mind, and called a ball, and Johnson walked Renteria on eight tosses. Even though three outfield flies around a Jason Varitek walk closed the frame with no score, it took 23 pitches, and Johnson never seemed comfortable after that.

He allowed a second-inning walk, a lead-off Renteria double in the third, and a Bill Mueller walk and Bellhorn single in the fourth, but he pitched out of it all while striking out two. But the 67 offerings required to get through four was telling. Renteria led off the fifth with another base hit, and two outs later Varitek took Randy out to almost straight center for a 2-0 Boston lead. Jeter’s triple got one of the runs back, but Randy was at 91 pitches entering the sixth (same exact count as Wakefield), and he had lost enough off his fastball that the Sox were able to stroke five consecutive one-out hits.

But right then a new part of the Yankee armor came to the fore, and with four chances to drive in a run after Payton’s one-out double, the Sox failed (or more correctly, the Yanks succeeded) on three of them. First, when Matsui charged a Bellhorn single to center, Payton was held at third. Jay scored on Damon’s single to right, but Tony Womack pegged Bellhorn out at the plate on Renteria’s third hit, and then Damon was nailed by Cano’s throw to Posada on Ortiz’s infield single off the Yankee second baseman’s glove. Outfield and infield assists on plays at the plate haven’t been a Yankee forte for some time, and it would not stretch the truth much to say the game was won when the Bombers stopped Boston from scoring more than one run on that five-hit barrage.

So Johnson struggled after starting his sixth with 91 pitches, and Wakefield did the same. He issued his seventh walk to Bernie Williams leading off, and tried to get ahead of young Cano with a quick fastball. But Robinson became the agent of the Yankee offense that rocked the knuckleballing veteran, and he blasted the pitch for his second home run of both this week and of his big-league career: 3-3. Jeter singled to left on the next pitch and lefty Alan Embree replaced Wakefield to face Womack. Perhaps riding a high after his great throw nailed Bellhorn, Tony tried to bunt Jeter over twice, bunting just foul down third and then popping one behind the plate that Varitek may have had a shot at if he had gotten a better jump. But the Yankee left fielder battled to 3-2 and then singled to short left. With lefty Matsui on deck, Boston stuck with Embree to face Gary Sheffield, and they paid for it. Shef flashed his trademark vicious swing on an 0-1 fastball and drilled it into the left field upper deck too quickly for it to curve foul, and the Yanks had a 6-3 lead.

Tanyon Sturtze pitched the seventh, Buddy Groom got two outs in the eighth, and Flash Gordon struck out Renteria to close that inning and David Ortiz to open the ninth, with Mo warmed in the pen. After a walk to the struggling Manny Ramirez, Mariano Rivera made his entrance and closed it on strike outs of Varitek and Mueller around a
Millar single.

When Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians stumbled out of the gate to a 12-17 start in 1949, the creative owner and entrepreneur held a second Opening Day on May 27 to get his team out of that rut. But when Joe Torre’s 2005 Yankees bottomed out at 11-19 after an ugly Stadium loss to the A’s 21 days ago, this team came together without needing that gimmick. The resulting 16-2 mark since has vaulted them into second place, and all the cylinders are purring. Most of those games have featured a quality start, and Randy Johnson’s battle this night approached that, as he allowed only three runs, but didn’t make seven frames. The bullpen threw up zeroes just as they did the night before in a one-run win over the Tigers.

In Thursday night’s 4-3 win, the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place batters in Joe Torre’s lineup delivered six of the nine hits, scored all four of the runs, and drove in two of those scores. Earlier in the week, Alex Rodriguez chipped in two homers in a Yankee explosion, and A-Rod delivered the big hit Wednesday too. But in this 6-3 victory over the rival Sox, those same three hitters chipped in no hits, no runs, and no rbi’s, though Alex reached safely four times without hitting a ball fair. Red Sox fans like to crow that Rodriguez does not come through in big games and that he doesn’t scare them. I might believe that they had a point if their team wasn’t so afraid to throw him a strike.

But this has been a team streak, even if Alex has provided much of the juice lately. Batting seventh Friday, Posada reached three times on two hits and a walk; Derek Jeter ignited the offense with the fifth-inning triple, and he scored two times on two hits leading off. And Sheffield delivered the loud three-run bomb in the three hole.

But this game ball goes to young second baseman Robinson Cano. Wakefield thought he could catch a breather delivering one sneaky pitch to the Yankee ninth-place hitter. And he found out what we all now know:

Cano Can Do.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!