Bronx, N.Y., September 10, 2002 — It is not the best time for this at work, but I just couldn’t help myself. I didn’t go out of my way looking for trouble either. I really did have tickets to the rained-out June 6 game against the Orioles that was to be played as the first game of today’s twin bill; I had tickets for the night game too. I was intrigued when I saw the two together on the rejiggered Yankee schedule. I don’t know when I last attended a double dip, but I would not pass up the opportunity Tuesday. I would have been there without the Paul O’Neill bobble head.

I spent 11 hours and twenty minutes from when I left home until I returned. The first game got off to a quick start, and could have approached the second game in its brevity — could have at least until Jason Johnson tired and walked two in the sixth, and Willis Roberts and Yorkis Perez just ground the game to a halt as they attempted to stop the Yanks from scoring the runs that would belie exactly how close (and quick) this game was. Even with their antics, game one was over in three hours and 20 minutes. Combined with the astoundingly brief run time of two hours and 13 minutes of the second, I watched five hours and 33 minutes of baseball today. I spied and recorded 486 pitches thrown by 10 pitchers. (No reliever appeared twice on the day.) And I had to kill two hours and forty minutes between last pitch and first between the two games.

And they turned out to be two very good games. All four starting pitchers threw well, and each pair who ended up pitching against one another shared some eerily similar stats. Pettitte’s pitch count grew a bit during the early innings of game one when both starters were really working well. He hit Cordova’s back foot when Marty stubbornly refused to move it in the second. The situation grew grave when Alfonso booted third baseman Leon’s knuckleball grounder when he eschewed the line drive catch so he could go for two, but Andy wiggled out. Pettitte gave up a single in the fourth (removed on a 4-6-3) and a single and double back-to-back in the fifth that netted the Birds the go-ahead run. We all breathed a sigh of relief (though none more than Andy) that the Matos liner up the middle that knocked in the run just barely missed his head.

Johnson, meanwhile, was dispatching the Yanks with ease. The count was 15 up and 15 down (Posada’s second-inning walk and Mondesi’s third-inning single were both removed on double plays) when Raul singled again leading off the home sixth. Nick Johnson (who had erred on a throw from first on a pick-off, and would err on a catch there later, both miscues advancing runners to third who did not score) had rapped a first-pitch 6-6-3 after Raul’s first base hit, but Joe sent Mondesi and Nick’s second hard hopper to the vacated shortstop hole gave us runners on the corners with no one out. Knocking in the first of two pivotal runs in the first game, Juan Rivera score Raul on a sac fly to right, but even though Jason Johnson had tired and would walk both Jeter and Giambi to load the bases, we plated that tying run and no other.

But the inning had taxed Johnson and, eerily, both he and Pettitte had almost identical six-inning pitch counts (Johnson, 86; Pettitte, 87). But throwing hard less often, Andy used reserves to survive the seventh (with help from Jorge picking Cordova off first after his leadoff base hit) and a strike out of catcher Gil leading off the eighth. He was relieved (effectively) by Mendoza after surrendering a double to Matos. Ramiro threw a ground ball pitch, but Nick dropped Alfonso’s throw. El Brujo turned calmly back to the work at hand (runners at first and third with one out in a one-run game), worked his magic again and got the 5-4-3 to preserve Andy’s 10th victory, though Nick did save the day on a fine stretch on Alfonso’s slightly wide relay to first.

Johnson struggled in the seventh, as did Willis Roberts once he relieved Ryan, who had come in and retired Nick Johnson on one pitch. And once Roberts began his day of work, the “pitchers’ duel” part of the contest was over. (One almost wishes Jason Johnson had a Mendoza to come in and spell him after such fine work.) Juan Rivera had already knocked in the first run the inning before, but many of the extremely sparse but excited crowd expected Vander Wal would hit with the lead run on third and two outs anyway. But Joe, knowing that all he can learn about how Juan responds to pressure is more valuable than one September win, stuck with his rookie. Striding to the plate, Juan stepped into fair territory and drew a short line in the dirt in front of the batter’s box. He backed up, stood at the plate and took a ball and then stroked the game-winning hit to right.

The most unique thing about game one, however, was the short and intimate guest list. A common problem with games that are not on the original schedule is that they draw very poorly, and I was able to move from my seventh-row tier seats to the first row with ease, and enjoyed the day yelling encouragement to my favorite players. Foul balls were routinely corraled by fans who had rows and rows of room to themselves to chase them, and quite a few were actually caught by fans running hither and yon. I have seen a few weeknight rescheduled games that were lightly attended (in one I caught a Fred McGriff liner just like fans who had rows to themselves were catching them today), but this was the first time I saw this small a crowd since I attended a double header in September 1990 with similar numbers in the stands, and I was able to get a Matt Nokes foul ball by walking over to where it had stopped rolling (in the first base field boxes!) and picking it up.

Jason Johnson only surrendered two runs in his 6.3 innings, on four measly hits and four walks, using 99 pitches. Andy had only thrown 101 (two more) through seven, and his 18-9 first-pitch-strike ratio was good. Johnson’s 10-16 mark was poor, but his command was good, and I might have felt sorry about the three that we plated in the ninth after Derek’s lead-off double, but Roberts threw pitch one at Jason’s head, and hit him with pitch two, so I’m fine that we scored largely because of his two ensuing wild pitches and one by Yorkis Perez.

Game two needs no help from me making the case for how totally dominant the starting pitchers were, and how similar their numbers. Jeff Weaver fell behind 1-0 as Andy had, but earlier (in the second inning) and in the reverse manner (single, double rather than double, single). And the fact that Weaver hasn’t been starting notwithstanding, he could have finished the game, but the handler of people that Joe Torre has shown himself to be, he is busy building himself a new just-in-case closer, so Karsay pitched the ninth.

Sydney Ponson and Jeff Weaver did not manage to get me out of the Bronx after a 133-minute game by accident. They did it by throwing strikes. In what I believe is a first for games I have scored, both fashioned single-digit inning pitch counts three times during this game. Weaver’s 69-29 strikes to balls ratio was superb; Ponson’s 75-24 rises to the rarefied better-than-three-to-one plateau. As with Andy and Jason, their sixth-inning pitch count wasn’t only similar, it was identical, at 73. Both starters zipped through the opposing order throwing eight out of nine first-pitch strikes. Jeff finished at 20-8, Sydney at 22-9. Both guys struck out five. Jeff gave up four hits in eight (three in the first two innings); Sydney allowed six, but one was a homer, and one scored a run only because the only walk of the game (his walk of Vander Wal) brought game one hero Juan Rivera to the plate with Nick Johnson on third in the eighth. He promptly delivered this one too.

Yes, Juan and Nick were all over the scoring in both games of this twin bill. Nick went two for seven, scored a run and set up another on a hit and run single. Juan went three for six and knocked in three runs. And they were two of the three guys who would play both halves of this double header. And if the thing that made game one stand out was the sparse crowd, game two’s grab on a fan’s everyday consciousness was the lineup. The table setters were Enrique Wilson and Alex Arias (the keystone combo in the infield too), but they combined with number three hitter Rondell White to go 0 for 12.

In fact, when looking at my first game scorecard, it struck me that Joe’s technique for selecting a game two lineup was kind of like musical chairs. He looked down the line and decided the top six guys would be the first to hear the music stop and take their place on his bench, though most of them spent the first four or five innings leaning on the dugout rail watching the game and encouraging (one hopes) their replacements. The bottom three guys in the game-one lineup would play game two, and we have talked about the contributions of two of them. The guy who played the best offense in Joe Torre’s lineups Tuesday, and who even kicked in by patrolling the more demanding center field in game two, was Raul Mondesi. He went three for three in game one with a walk, a run scored and an rbi. And he broke the 1-1 tie in game two with his long drive to the boxes in left field in the fourth. Reflecting on another great day in the Bronx, I am most glad of one thing.

There was no seat for Raul Mondesi on the Yankee bench when the music stopped.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!