Bronx, N.Y., September 2, 2007 — The Yankees’ task this last four weeks of the 2007 is simple: Play well, win every game if you can. No need to do much more minor-league player auditioning than they’ve been doing all year. After all, they had a game begun by their eighth rookie starting pitcher of the year on Saturday. The team needs to play well, and it did not do so this weekend.
Assuming the team would take care of business against the league’s worst team, with their hottest pitcher on the mound, as a fan I had a whole different goal in mind. We brought my 19-year-old second cousin from Northern Ireland to the game to show her just how much fun a baseball game can be. True, I had sat through a real stinker Friday night, but they looked better Saturday, and I had visions of the three-game sweep of Boston earlier in the week. All three battles were well played, taut, tense affairs, so close that there had been relatively little of the fan fisticuffs in the stands these games so often attract.
It’s hard to say which of us was more unsuccessful this day, me or the Yankees. Facing Tampa rookie Jason Hammel, with a 7.44 era and a 2-6 record, the Yanks needed an error and a hit by pitch to finally push across a run in the fifth. Hammel struck out the side in both the first and third, and allowed just the one unearned run through six. And he was succeeded by four more hard-throwing right-handers who’ve had middling success at best. But they were brilliant to a man this day. The Yanks managed a walk and a Bobby Abreu triple for a run in the seventh and two harmless singles leading off the eighth.
The home team managed just two runs on eights hits. Yankee hitters one through four have terrorized some of the best pitching in the league, but on this day they absorbed all eight Yankee strike outs, all of them swinging. The team had two chances to score a run from third with one out in a tight game, and failed both times.
Andy Pettitte’s line will say he was reached for five runs on seven hits, including two home runs, over 6.3 frames. But though he wasn’t at his sharpest, the veteran lefty kept his team in this one and gutted it out through some tough innngs. He was reached for six hits through the first five, but kept the Rays off the board except for ex-Yank catcher Dioner Navarro’s home run that barely cleared Johnny Damon’s glove in left field in the third. Andy picked off a batter and Damon threw another out at the plate to end the top of the fifth. Melky Cabrera doubled Andy Phillips in in the bottom half to tie the game at a run apiece. But Pettitte was back in trouble in the sixth.
Andy actually did his best work that frame, or at least he did after allowing a leadoff walk to the speedy Carl Crawford. The Tampa left fielder reached second when Pettitte’s errant throw got past first baseman Wilson Betemit, in for Phillips once he had taken a pitch off his hand. And Crawford stole third without a throw as Carlos Pena walked. B.J. Upton scored Crawford on a sac fly to break the tie, and Delmon Young singled Pena to second. Alex Rodriguez made a great down-the-line stab that saved one run at least on a Brendan Harris hot shot, but Harris beat the throw at first and the bases were loaded with one down. Pettitte stiffened and got power hitting Jonny Gomes on three big swings and escaped without further damage when Josh Wilson bounced to short.
Perhaps if the Yankee offense could have finally broken through there, the day could have been saved. And they had help, as Hammel left after hitting Rodriguez with his seventh pitch of the sixth inning. Scott Dohmann came on and won a seven-pitch battle with Hideki Matsui and a three-pitch one with Jorge Posada, getting each to fly out to medium right field. Robbie Cano reached on a five-pitch walk, but Betemit, with his average having slipped to .188 coming in, flied out to left. Pettitte returned for the seventh having already thrown more than 100 pitches, just as he had in winning Tuesday, but he would buckle now. Navarro and Crawford singled around an Iwamura strike out, and Pena blasted a three-run homer to right. Edwar Ramirez came on to record back-to-back strike outs, but the four-run deficit loomed.
Damon walked with one down in the seventh, but Derek Jeter suffered his third strike out before Abreu delivered Damon with a triple to close it to 5-2. Ramirez posted two quick outs in the eighth, but a six-pitch flurry of Wilson home run, Navarro single, Iwamura homer forged the final 8-2 score and drove Ramirez from the game in favor of Jose Veras. Ramirez has a killer change of pace when it’s well concealed with low-nineties fastballs, but he is hit hard when batters guess right. It may sound like hard advice to a young hurler who walked in multiple opponents in a nightmare outing weeks ago, but he throws too many strikes, 17 of 21 this day. Hitters would be less certain with the big swings if he missed more often.
It was a demoralizing loss the team needs to forget, and return to playing inspired baseball Monday against Wild Card competitor Seatttle. It was all too familiar to me, however, as I tried to explain the intricasies of the game to cousin Sheila. But all I could think of was the doubleheader I had brought this child’s poor parents to 20 years ago. There was a rainout, and we jumped at the chance to give them a double shot at our great game, though the seats were out in left field. And as the day began, it seemed an inspired choice.
The Yanks and Texas Rangers played through 1.5 scoreless frames of the first game, but Dave Winfield walked leading off the second and was balked over one base. (Here’s a tip: Never try to explain the balk rule.) After a fly out, Mike Easler singled, and the cheers grew to a crescendo. When Mike Pagliarulo turned on a Jose Guzman fast ball, bam!, we were up 3-0. Bill and Kathy didn’t quite know what they were seeing, but it was fun, the 45,000 fans were letting them know. Wayne Tolleson followed with a single, but the inning ended with the Yanks up 3-0.
Five and a half hours later, the Yanks had stroked four more hits the rest of the day, holding on for a 3-1 win, then falling 9-0. My brother told and retold jokes that were 10, and then 20, years old. We plied them with hot dogs and beer, with tales of the city, the country too. We took them to dinner afterward, and to Atlantic City the next day. They were very polite, but I’m not sure we ever dispelled the five hours of drudgery.
And now Sheila can fly home and share her tale of a three hour, 44-minute yawner in the South Bronx.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!