Bronx, N.Y., June 14, 2005 — Anyone entering a time warp almost 45 years ago who emerged during the Yankees/Pirates game in the Bronx Tuesday night would have felt right at home, as the 9-0 Bombers victory would have fit right in with the three drubbings New York handed Pittsburgh in the 1960 World Series (won by the Pirates in the other four games). After Bengals starter Kip Wells retired the first three Yanks in the first, they would not be set down in order again, they hit a home run, they scored in five different innings, and they notched at least one hit in every other frame.

But although this Yankee team limped home from a disastrous 3-9 road trip in need of some reliable offense, the story of this win was the performance of Mike Mussina. He held the visitors off the board on a complete-game five-hitter, and walked but one while striking out six. But that’s not the whole story. He not only retired the first 14 Pirates he faced, it took him only 43 throws to do it. Bending a bit after a Daryle Ward single right down the first base line, he allowed his only walk, and the young Pirates hitters tried to capitalize with four of their five hits in the fifth, sixth, and seventh.

But pitchers do not work in a vacuum, and both the Yankee offense and defense were feeding off Mussina’s dominating performance. Once Hideki Matsui, DH’ing after spraining his ankle in right field Sunday, gave the Yanks the early lead with a one-out blast to the right center field bleachers in the second, the Yankees began to compile runs. They doubled their lead on a Jason Giambi walk, Derek Jeter single, and a throwing error in the third, and Jorge Posada drove in Matsui, on with a 3-2 single, with run number three in the fourth.

Then once Moose allowed the fifth-inning single, the Yanks put the game away with a four-run outburst in their half, a rally started by Robinson Cano’s double to left center and completed once Jason Giambi’s two-base hit that reached the wall in deepest center field delivered the third and fourth runs. But as the game drifted to out-of-reach proportions for Pittsburgh, there was still the matter of Mussina’s chances for a shutout and a complete game.

Taking their cue from Moose’s superb outing, the Yankees brought their gloves this night. Left fielder Matt Lawton stroked a one-out single in the sixth, and Sanchez followed with a sinking liner to left after fouling off six Mussina pitches. Left fielder Tony Womack made a diving catch; it was good to see that his continued lifeless offense didn’t affect him in the field. But then left fielder Jason Bay made Pittsburgh’s strongest bid to plate a run, as he blasted a 1-0 offering off the base of the wall in deep right center. The speedy Lawton seemed to be running in quicksand as Bernie Williams retrieved the carom quickly, found Robinson Cano with an accurate peg in short right, and the young second baseman turned and nailed the right fielder at the plate with room to spare.

The Yankees came home embarrassed after their ugly road trip, and Mussina’s dominance inspired their play all evening. The sparkling defensive work in the sixth did not stand out from their play all night: It was just a sample. Posada made a fine grab of a Castillo foul pop by the Yankee dugout in the third; Derek Jeter turned in sparklers against Lawton in the fourth, and Humberto Cota in the eighth; Cano was smooth on a Mackoviak bouncer in the fifth and a Jack Wilson pop behind first in the eighth; and Moose helped himself with a leaping grab of Cota’s hot shot high hopper up the middle to close the fifth. On the flip side, Castillo and Wilson did a good job on a 4-6-3 against the Yanks on a hit and run play in the fifth and second baseman Castillo made the play of the night with a diving grab of Posada’s seventh-inning bid for a third single up the middle.

So the Yankees hit, ran, caught, and threw. But as stated before, nobody threw like Moose. He entered the ninth inning with a genuine shot to close the Pirates out before 10:00 pm, and still under 100 pitches. But Pittsburgh fouled off 11 pitches, extending the game until 10:01, and Mike’s count to 109. Seventy-six of those were strikes, with the 10 swings and misses leading to his six K’s. But perhaps the first-pitch strike stat is the most telling of Mike’s fine work this night. He threw a strike first 25 out of 32 times, with a consistency that borders on astounding. The first five Pirates were greeted with strikes, then a ball to start number six. Then four more were down 0-1 right away, then a ball. Mike continued the pattern, throwing first-pitch strikes to four batters in a row four more times.

It seemed longer than the actual 16 days it had been since I had seen the team play in the Bronx. The Stadium was familiar, with one slight difference. The Yankees have added triangles cut out of the foul-territory grass on the ends of the first and third base lines. The points are near the bags, and the shapes extend 15 -20 feet toward home plate, widening the baseline dirt near the bases. There were glitches with the out-of-town scores on the auxiliary scoreboards below the loge along the right and left field lines. They updated scores for perhaps half an hour and then all the games were frozen in time. Stadium personnel eventually gave up and took them down in the seventh, but the old out-of-town scoreboard in the left field corner worked fine all night.

I can’t say that it was a beautiful night to watch a ballgame, as New York continues to struggle with heat and humidity. It speaks volumes that my night in the ballpark was framed by pleasantly cool subway rides I was reluctant to leave on both ends. But there is something about the House That Ruth Built on a hazy night. The moon and the stars are often lost in the Stadium lights, but in this steambath the half moon stood out over home plate, reminding us and the Yankees that many more positive things need to be done to make up for a bad start.

And “start” is the key word there. They have had stellar performances from their three best starters in the last three games. The strength of this team was to have been in its rotation. This night the offense and defense fed off Mussina’s fine work. If there is hope for the future, the rotation is the place to look.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!