Bronx, N.Y., August 1, 2004 — Yankee bats seemed to struggle under the same malaise that had many believing there would be no game in the Bronx on Sunday afternoon. West, south, north, and east of Yankee Stadium the skies filled with rain in the morning, and even when most of the visible precipitation dwindled after noon, 90 percent humidity dampened brows and spirits, and fans searched for cover as much as they would under a deluge.
The rain did not return once it subsided, but half the din one expects from 50,000 people drifted through the Stadium as Orlando “el duque” Hernandez bent a first-pitch curve across the plate against Jerry Hairston at 1:10. The Yanks and Orioles were closing a four-gamer with the Yanks up two games to one. New York sent the wily, creative master of the lob and toss to the mound, where he would be facing hard-throwing righty Rodrigo Lopez, the closest thing the Birds have had to an ace this season.
El duque set a pattern early, sending the O’s batters flailing and/or ducking his slow and slower sliders and curves, and attempting to be ready for the rare fast ball that would whisper across the corner, or be wasted a foot outside. The Duke struck out four through two, but he allowed three hits, two of them bloops. Lopez was better, striking out five of the first eight Yanks around a Derek Jeter single up the middle with one out in the first. When Melvin Mora guessed right on a 1-2 Hernandez pitch in the third for an opposite field home run, the Birds took a 1-0 lead that looked bigger with the way Lopez was dealing.
And in the wilting heat, the two-hit second and third innings cost The Duke 22 and 21 pitches. He almost pitched out of the back-to-back leadoff singles by David Newhan and Larry Bigbie in the fourth, but with two outs, Brian Roberts fouled off two 2-2 pitches. When Hernandez loaded up a superslow “eephus” pitch, the Baltimore second sacker was ready, and he smacked it into short center as Newhan scored the visitors’ second run. The Duke closed it out by getting Mora swinging, but 33 fourth-inning tosses put his pitch count at 89, while his mates had managed one bingle on 44 to that point.
And then the day turned. The Yankee bats sprung to life, and Lopez got tentative, and it is not at all coincidental that this occurred when the Yankee Captain led off the fourth. Jeter battled him for eight pitches, then singled up the middle, almost a carbon copy of the one he drilled in the first (and also of the one he would one inning later). Sheffield took a strike, then walked on four straight, but A-Rod went down swinging. But the Yankee lineup was too much. After Lopez walked Posada to fill the bases, Matsui smacked a first-pitch, opposite-field double to tie the score. Baltimore Manager Mazzili elected to play his infield back, and Bernie Williams gave the Yanks the lead with a roller to Roberts at second. With the fans hoping for a two-out rbi hit from Tony Clark, he exceeded their expectations by about 300 feet as he blasted a 1-1 pitch 12 rows deep into the right field upper deck. 5-2 Yanks, just like that.
Rafael Palmeiro closed the gap with a one-out blast to right in the fifth, but that was The Duke’s only mistake, as he struck out the side. The Bombers replied with four more quick tallies that chased Lopez. Torre decided against sending Hernandez back out after a second consecutive long inning, and Tanyon Sturtze pitched the sixth. He stumbled in the seventh, unfortunately needing the weary Paul Quantrill’s help, with the O’s scoring two. And when Scott Proctor, pitching the ninth, allowed a Tejada home run and a walk to Palmeiro, the overused Mariano Rivera came on for his 38th save in a 9-7 win. Although I lament his daunting work schedule, I have to admit I was glad to see him. Watching a Yankee Stadium game without Enter Sandman being played would be half the fun.
The Duke continues to be his own pitcher, allowing long home runs and annoying singles, but whiffing nine (eight swinging) among just 15 outs. He threw 69 strikes and 35 balls for an almost perfect two-to-one ratio, walked one, with three runs scoring on nine hits. He threw 15 of 25 first-pitch strikes, but the manner of those strikes was the amazing thing. Dazzling or not, most pitchers invariably follow what I’ll call the Jim Kaat Theory of Pitching whether they want to or not. That is to say, they hits bats more often than they miss them. El duque turned that theory right on its head on Sunday. Only 33 of 69 strikes were struck, foul or fair, as the O’s watched 20 go by, and swung and missed 16 times, for 36 strikes with no contact.
I won’t claim it was another beautiful day in the Bronx, though they did finish this marathon under a blue and almost cloudless sky. The contest featured eight plus-20-pitch half innings, four each side, and drifted on for almost four hours. The Yanks presented a moving tribute to fallen Yankee Thurman Munson after the home seventh, as the 25th anniversary of his death falls Monday with no game scheduled. The pictures and words brought many a tear, and Jorge Posada movingly refused to crouch behind home plate to take any warmup tosses as the crowd stood and cheered Munson’s name on the Scoreboard for a few minutes.
Any game thrown by el duque features some flashy moments when he succeeds in dropping in a 60 mph strike or two, always a crowd favorite. But it was perhaps raised to a new level against flummoxed Oriole catcher Robert Machado on the second of three swings and misses in the second. He was so fooled that he flung his bat in the manner of an Olympics discus thrower, and it whirled 15 rows deep behind the Orioles dugout, apparently landing safely among some very lucky fans.
Among the Yanks’ 26 Championships, fans and historians often group teams by naming a few of the offensive stars who led them. Thus, we hear of the Ruth and Gehrig teams of the twenties, the DiMaggio/Henrich teams of the thirties and forties, the Mantle and Maris teams of the sixties. Despite the power of Reggie Jackson, the Munson/Nettles teams in the 70s are not intimately tied in with the home run. Nor were the Torre teams in the nineties, Tino Martinez’s 44 jacks in ’97 notwithstanding. But the Ruth/Gehrig teams certainly were, as were the teams featuring the M&M Boys in the sixties.
The Yankees hit six home runs in winning the last three games of the Orioles series, with three this day. In the four-run fifth, center fielder Kenny Lofton led off with a drive to right. Alex Rodriguez then joined the fun after a Jeter single, increasing the Yankee lead to 8-3 on a two-run no-doubt-about-it blast to left. Alex has seemed to round into shape lately, homering in three straight, and joining Gary Sheffield for this weekend on the monthlong tear he has fashioned. These two went yard together once in April, twice in May, once in June. But the two they blasted yesterday gave them three such dates in July. Shef cleared but one fence fair these three days but he blasted four foul home runs. If Alex and Gary start homering in tandem, and often, the American League had better beware.
The home team in the Bronx has developed a variety of ways to celebrate home runs on the Scoreboard, with the music from Robert Redford’s The Natural enjoying a lot of popularity of late, but with the team celebrating often, they mix it up by bringing back some of the light and sound shows from yesteryear. When A-Rod’s two run fifth-inning blast soared over the fence in left, they blasted the loudspeakers with one they used often in the late nineties, where among a cacophony of blasts and fanfares and a driving beat, the board flashes, “WHOOO-MP! there it is” several times in succession.
“To strike with a sharp noise or thump” and to “trounce” are Webster’s descriptions of “whomp” as a verb; with a “loud slap, crash, or crunch” as a noun. It is reasonable, I guess, that with the way the 2004 version of the Yankees is hitting the ball, the extra O’s in WHOOO-MP can be justified. Two batters after Rodriguez blasted his Scoreboard-rattling drive, Orioles reliever John Parrish bobbled Matsui’s slow roller toward first for an error. The loudspeakers replied with the signature line from Britney Spears’ hit, Oops, I Did It Again.
I think if the Yankee Stadium Scoreboard ever decides for a retro look with technicians physically hanging hand-lettered messages, they are going to need more O’s and P’s than they think.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!