This time, the Olde Towne Team made an eighth-inning non-decision when there was plenty of time to overcome disaster actual, alleged, or pre-ordained.
When the Red Sox plowed Kevin (The Wallplower) Brown for four first-inning runs Sunday afternoon, beginning a performance that repeated their Saturday gig against the Evil Empire, with a difference of one run per team in the final score, you could almost hear an exhilarated Fenway Park preparing Terry Francona's special dispensation from the Roll of Infamy.
It was Francona who had a Grady Little moment Friday night, and with the same pitcher, yet. "History," said Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina after that game, "tends to repeat itself -- but usually not that quickly." The difference was that Little's did not reap immediate disaster, but Francona's did.
Last October, Little's faith in tiring Pedro Martinez let the Yankees tie the seventh game of the American League Championship Series, with extra innings and a would-be Red Sox pennant flying into the left field seats off the end of Aaron Boone's bat. Friday night, Francona's faith in tiring Pedro Martinez was rewarded with Hideki Matsui launching one into the right center field bullpen to tie and Ruben Sierra driving home Bernie Williams (who'd followed Matsui with a ground rule double) and Martinez out, before the Yankees added one in the ninth for the 6-4 win.
And the faithful in the Fens let Francona have it, but good. "If I run out there after two pitches ... it would make it look like I wasn't making a very good decision before the inning,'' he said after the game. "We put a lot of thought into what we're doing. I was disappointed it was a tie game instead of having a one-run lead, but two pitches into the inning he's still, in my opinion, he's okay."
Except that the Red Sox, in enough other people's opinion, were anything but okay. Not falling five and a half out in the American League East race, in spite of their certain enough wildcard lead; not letting the Yankees clinch at least a postseason berth. Not falling back to the place where Red Sox past tend to fall, as a rule of extraterrestrial precedent.
But not quite yet. Not with that 12-4 Saturday poleaxing, especially not with the five-all tie getting blown apart by way of a seven-run bottom of the eighth that only began when Manny Ramirez bombed an RBI double off the center field corner to break the tie. Jason Varitek had a two-bag job of his own to perform shortly enough, his ground rule double sending home Ramirez and Pokey Reese, and Doug Mirabelli saw and raised with a double off the Monster to send home Varitek and David Ortiz. Orlando Cabrera's sacrifice fly and Bill Mueller's RBI single finished that inning's romp, Keith Foulke finished his four-out save with a pinpoint perfect ninth, and the Red Sox had at least ensured that, if the AL East was the Yankees' to win or lose, they were going to have to clinch it elsewhere.
As if to punctuate that point ("Maybe you guys can rub it in their face and make them think about it," cracked Johnny Damon to reporters afterward), the Red Sox chose a magnificent time to remind the Yankees about what can happen if a fool and his temper are not soon enough parted. In Brown's case, what happened was the shortest day's work of his major league life.
Curt Schilling had dispatched the Yankees with murderous ease in the top of the first, but after Damon opened the bottom with a ground out to second, the Red Sox had no intention of letting Brown off that easily. Not with a sandwich of three doubles two worth RBI (Ramirez; Ortiz, driving in Bellhorn and Ramirez; Trot Nixon, driving home Ortiz) between two singles (Bellhorn and, driving home Nixon, Varitek) before Brown finally got a second out, swishing Cabrera, before Mueller's infield hit pushed the Wallplower out and Esteban Loaiza in.
Schilling zipped the Yankees in order again in the top of the second, and then the Red Sox treated Loaiza almost as rudely as they had manhandled Brown. This time, however, Damon went nowhere but to first base on a leadoff walk. Bellhorn pushed him to third with a single and Ramirez sent him home with a sacrifice fly. After Ortiz walked and Nixon pushed him and Bellhorn over with an infield out, Varitek provoked something seen as rarely as an open traffic lane on the Major Deegan Expressway in rush hour.
The Red Sox backstop bounced one up the lane toward Derek Jeter, and the Yankee shortstop nonpareil hopped up to snag it. That was good enough for an infield hit and Bellhorn coming home, but Ortiz had run on the pitch and rounded third as Jeter cocked to throw home, and the ball sailed enough to force Jorge Posada at the plate to leap valiantly, but futilely to spear it, Ortiz crossing the plate for a 7-0 Boston advantage. Loaiza got Cabrera to pop out to Alex Rodriguez to end the inning without further fallout. For awhile.
Kenny Lofton, grounding out to second in the Yankee third, served an elbow in the side to Red Sox first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who was anything but thrilled. ("There's 700 players in the league. For some reason, he's the only one I get elbowed by," said Mientkiewicz after the game, while Lofton for his part protested that he, Lofton, was only trying to get out of the way.) Lofton jawed a little, the Red Sox jawed a little more, and when Pedro Astacio relieved Schilling to start the top of the eighth, he made sure Lofton got anything but drilled, winging his second pitch of the sequence behind Lofton's head.
In the bottom of the inning, Yankee reliever Brad Halsey played Dave Roberts a little treble chin music, pouring benches and bullpens onto the field and getting both Halsey and Yankee boss Joe Torre heave-hoed, before the Red Sox finished what they started and pushed themselves to within three and a half of the Stripes.
Schilling, for his part, would have had himself a shutout had he not gotten just a little bit careless working the Yankee fourth. He got Jeter to line out to Mientkiewicz for his 10th straight out before handing passes to Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, and Matsui. Then, Schilling regrouped and swished Williams. But Posada ripped one up the middle to send home Rodriguez and Sheffield. Schilling had no more hits to yield the Yankees, but he found himself blaming himself for Posada's RBI hit. "I should have caught that ball," he said matter of factly after the game.
The Red Sox, however, had two more runs to yield the Yankees in the eighth, after Astacio got ho-heaved for brushing back Roberts. Terry Adams relieved him and, after walking Lofton and inducing his force out at second by little-known Felix Escalona (who had spelled Jeter at shortstop for the Empire), served up just one pitch to Andy Phillips. And Phillips served it over the center field fence for his first major league mash.
Not that the Red Sox were worried, necessarily. They padded their advantage with one in the fifth, when Loaiza and Mueller wrestled to a full count before Mueller wrestled the next pitch into the right field bullpen. And they tacked up three more in the sixth, beginning the old fashioned way when Nixon singled home Roberts. After Varitek walked to push Loaiza out and Steve Karsay in for the Yankees, Karsay with a ball one count on Cabrera wild pitched Ortiz home, before Cabrera finally sent Nixon home with a sacrifice fly.
"It's a heated rivalry," said Roberts afterward, himself a veteran of another heated rivalry thanks to a few seasons in the fatigues of the Los Angeles Dodgers -- who spent Sunday pushing back their heated rivals in San Francisco again, taking a second of three on the weekend, 7-4, while the Giants' National League wildcard rival Chicago Cubs were dropping a second-straight 3-2 loss to the New York Mets. "There's respect between the teams," Roberts added, "but there's no love lost."
Torre sees it just a little bit differently. "It's like a disagreement in a family,'' he said after the game. "You address it, it's over with and you go on loving somebody."
Torre is, of course, one of baseball's noblemen. But the Red Sox? The Yankees? Loving somebody? Excuse me if I head for the nearest camel-through-the-needle's-eye contest first.
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