The New York Daily News
17 May 2006
One of the wildest, most improbable nights in Yankee history was building to its third or fourth crescendo when Jorge Posada, who had practically been a coin-flip choice by Joe Torre to bat cleanup in the manager's latest makeshift lineup, strode to the plate. Alex Rodriguez had just made the second out of the ninth inning with a scorched liner to deep center field.
"Once Alex lined out like that," said Joe Torre, "you figured at that point you've done all you could."
Certainly in Posada's case that was true. Who knows if his brains were still a bit scrambled after the horrific sixth-inning collision at home plate in which he took the full brunt of Mark Teixeira's oncoming body in preventing the Texas first baseman from scoring from first on Hank Blalock's two-out double? All we know is that Posada was dead tired and wanted this game, which the Yankees were trailing on three separate occasions, to be over.
And five pitches later from Texas closer Akinori Otsuka it was.
"When Jorge worked the count to 3-1, everything changed again," said Torre.
Posada's eyes, which had been bloodied by the Teixeira collision, opened wide to Otsuka's belt-high fastball, and striking one for the old guard Yankees as Derek Jeter had done with his three-run homer that brought the Bombers to within 10-8 in the sixth, he launched it majestically into the damp night air, into the right-field seats.
"I was hoping it was going to go out," said Posada. "Actually, I knew it was out. I was really glad, too. I didn't want to play anymore."
It's a wonder if the remaining fans from the original 40,757 could take anymore. A lot of them probably considered leaving after the second inning when the Yankees were down 9-0, thanks to an abysmal start from Shawn Chacon. And when Torre's troopers began cutting into that lead with two runs in both the third and fifth before tying the franchise record for the the largest deficit overcome with a six-run sixth, deflation for the fans was right around the corner when Scott Proctor gave up a two-run homer to Brad Wilkerson in the seventh to put Texas ahead again 12-11.
After Posada tied the game again with a sacrifice fly, it was hard to believe there could be even further deflation. But there was as Mariano Rivera allowed the Rangers to forge yet another lead on Rod Barajas' RBI double in the ninth. At that point, the stands really began to clear out. Faith for yet another comeback had pretty much been spent.
The pregame topics of conversation - Hideki Matsui's return to the Stadium to address the small army of Japanese media and once again apologize for breaking his wrist; Torre's depleted lineup - had become distant memories. In discussing his make-do effort to get through this crisis in which Jason Giambi had joined Matsui and Gary Sheffield on the sidelines, Torre said he couldn't worry about rookie Melky Cabrera's struggles or who was going to hit where.
"I could have hit either Jorge or Bernie (Williams) cleanup," Torre said. "In the end, I just decided to go with Jorge."
"There was nobody else," said Posada with a laugh.
The last time he hit cleanup was the final day of the 2004 season, but after last night, in which he drove in five runs, he can probably count on hitting there again a few more times, at least until Sheffield gets back.
As for Melky, who didn't have any errors charged to him in left field last night but seemed to have an awful lot of balls dropping in around him, Torre acknowledged: "He's in a foreign land and he's got to prove to himself he's capable. It's not his fault he wasn't supposed to be up here yet."
Like everyone else, with the exception of Chacon, Cabrera had a hand in the stunning comeback with a couple of hits and one run scored.
"You never know what's gonna happen with Jorge, but he sure got after it, especially after getting his bell rung," said Torre. "But we needed everybody from top to bottom tonight in order to do something significant like we did. I can't be more proud of how they performed. "
He added that this one would definitely have to be inserted somewhere in the list of top 10 games he's managed as a Yankee.
"Mine too," said Posada.
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