Bronx, N.Y., September 22, 2007 — I’m told there’s no truth to the rumor that the Blue Jays and Yanks have decided to suspend this coming Monday’s makeup of an April rainout, simply because they’ve more than made up for it in the nearly 10 hours of baseball they played in the Bronx starting with Friday night’s first pitch. Heck, throw in the 90-minute rain delay before Saturday’s tilt got underway, and they could suspend Sunday’s game too.

But neither game is called off, of course, though fans are forewarned to ply the baby sitter with wads of cash, put out the garbage, walk the dog, maybe even look into their wills and set their affairs in order before showing up for another game between these two division rivals. If these games are marketed at per-pitch figures, they’re the baseball bargains of the century.

For the first time in six (oops, it’s really five, but I lost count) games, fans who showed for the scheduled 1 pm Saturday game were not greeted by gorgeous weather. The skies opened 40 minutes before game time, and baseball did not begin until 2:37 EST. To give you an idea about what would befall the almost 55,000 paying customers once Yankee rookie Philip Hughes delivered the first pitch, the working title for this column was “An Argument for T-Ball” right up until the last minute.

The Yanks and Jays played 28 half innings in extended play Friday night. Ballplayers crossed home plate in four of those 28, one in seven times a major league team came to bat. The two teams plated runs eight different times Saturday, double the figure in eight less half innings, but the thing that made this one stand out as a poster game about how not to pitch major league baseball was the ugly numbers posted in most of those frames.

Yankee fans were relieved that starter Philip Hughes was removed just short of 100 pitches through five innings with the home team down just 3-2. He allowed just three hits in four of five scoreless frames, but the home team was down because of the four-hit, three-run top of the fourth. Seen through the prism of the eight tallies on seven hits and three walks relievers Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and Kyle Farnsworth allowed in the seventh and eighth, Hughes’s outing doesn’t look too bad.

The two teams used 18 pitchers between them, a record 10 by the home team. But though some of that legion escaped unscathed, offense took on the guise of an unrelenting epidemic most of the afternoon, with multiple runs ready to be unleashed at any moment. In the end, the Yanks came out on top when Mariano Rivera allowed just a double in the top of the ninth, and even though Jeff Karstens surrendered a single and double in the 10th, his defense scrambled from the mat to save him on his 20th pitch. Earlier in the game, twice what seemed to be clear singles fell between Melky Cabrera and his corner outfielders to either side, and twice Jays took the extra base. But when Aaron Hill doubled to the right center field wall with two down in the 10th and Matt Stairs on first, Melky unleashed his cannon, nailing cutoff man and best buddy Robbie Cano with a strike, which the Yankee second baseman took and pegged perfectly to a waiting Jorge Posada at home plate for the 8-4-2 punch out.

Posada followed up by leading off the bottom of the 10th with the kind of hit the Jays peppered the Yanks with all afternoon, a bloop into short left down the line that landed and bounded until Jorge was safely placed at second base. Johnny Damon pinch-ran and Jason Giambi, in the midst of an ugly 0-for-5 including three swinging strike outs, received a free pass. Robbie Cano, with his line drive bat, was next. He had gone hitless but walked and scored twice to this point. Answering the question that floated through the crowd, yes and no. He did bunt unsuccessfully once, but then swung away, delivering a fly to the warning track in left that advanced Damon to third with just one out.

That the Yanks were still in this game in the 10th was a tribute to their offense, with 17 hits, one less than the Jays, but the home team remained in the game primarily due to the efforts of Hideki Matsui, Alex Rodriguez, and late in the game, Cabrera. Matsui moved A-Rod into scoring position for the game’s first tally in the second, reached the 100-rbi mark by plating Bobby Abreu with a triple in the fifth, and padded an extremely tenuous Yankee lead to 6-3 with a two-run single in the sixth. And A-Rod, after walking and scoring in the second, stroked two singles and two doubles, knocked in three runs, and twice drilled two-out hits that gave the Yanks the lead.

But it looked to be all for naught, as the Yankee pen gave up the lead both times A-Rod provided it. It was to multiple groans that the Yanks scored but one run in the second after scoring that tally and still having first and third with no one out. But Giambi and Cano failed, and with the sacks filled, Cabrera swung at a 2-0 pitch and bounced to second. Agonizing at the young center fielder’s lack of plate discipline, I ate my [silent] words when he singled for two runs in the seventh, and then did the same one inning later, this time with two outs and the Bombers down by exactly those two. That he was thrown out aggressively rounding first does not change the fact that this game would have been lost without that base hit.

But shifting back forward to the bottom of the 10th, Wilson Betemit, who had run for Doug Mientkiewicz and subsequently made a great grab of a Stairs liner at first, came up with Damon 90 feet from victory and one down. But he fouled off Josh Towers’s first pitch, took a close strike, then flailed and missed at a slider in the dirt. The surprising thousands who had persevered through a long rain delay and five hours of baseball agonized at the lost chance as Cabrera strode to the plate. Now it would take a hit to score the winner. Melky took ball one, then lined the next pitch into right center.

The Yankee center fielder had been 0-for-4 and played middling defense early, but he made the play of the game to stop the Jays in the top half, and now he drove in his fifth run in the final four innings, for the 12-11 Yankee win. Sounds like a guy who is ready for the playoffs, huh?

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!