Mike Lupica: It isn't well-spent, but well-earned

The New York Daily News
19 August 2006

BOSTON - By the time Derek Jeter had cleared the bases with a double in the top of the seventh and the Yankees were about to bat around for the second time in Game 2, on their way to scoring seven in the seventh against the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees and Red Sox had played nearly eight hours of baseball at Fenway Park yesterday.

The Yankees had won Game 1 by a 12-4 score. By the time the top of the seventh ended, a few minutes before midnight, the Yankees were leading, 14-10, against what was left in the boneyard that is the Red Sox bullpen at the present time.

This wasn't the best rivalry in sports anymore. It was like watching relief pitchers do bad auditions for "American Idol," on the worst day the Red Sox have had since they won the World Series.

The Yankees had 17 hits in Game 1 and they also had 17 hits in Game 2. The Yankees had blown leads of 5-1 and 7-5 in Game 2, and things had gotten bad enough that Joe Torre had gone to Ron Villone even though Villone had thrown 42 pitches and two innings the day before against the Orioles. You bring guys back like that in October, not August. The joke around the Yankees sometimes is that the only thing worse than being on Torre's bad side if you're a relief pitcher is being on his good side. Before you know it, you're Paul Quantrill or Tanyon Sturtze and you have been loved to death.

Sidney Ponson started Game 2, an eventual 14-11 Yankee victory, and had nothing. It is hard to see him being around here at the end of next week, much less the end of the month. Then came Villone and then came a fastball kid named Brian Bruney and then came Mike Myers after that and Kyle Farnsworth after Myers. For a while, with Bruney, it looked as if Torre might have thrown in the towel in Game 2, Game 2 of what would eventually be a day-night-morning doubleheader that was about as elegant as mud wrestling.

But the Red Sox have less bullpen than the Yankees these days, and maybe the rest of the way. The Red Sox had less bullpen than anybody in baseball yesterday afternoon and into the night and then into this morning. So the Yankees came back in the top of the seventh, which seemed as long as Rudy Seanez's pathetic effort at the end of Game 1 out of the Red Sox bullpen, as long as Jon Lester's second inning in Game 2, when he managed to get by with a cool 41pitches.

You thought the Red Sox might get out of the seventh with two outs and the bases loaded and Mike Timlin against Jeter. It was 1-1 and 1-2 and 2-2 and finally 3-2. Moving up on eight hours of baseball now at Fenway.

Not too far from midnight. The Yankees trying to get a big sweep, the Red Sox trying not to fall 3-1/2 games behind the Yankees in the American League East.

Jeter, the captain of the team, the guy you want up there in a big spot more than anybody Torre has, reached out and hit one hard toward the right-field corner. By the time everybody stopped running, the Yankees were ahead, 11-10, at Fenway. Then Timlin walked Bobby Abreu intentionally and Alex Rodriguez doubled inside third base, and by the time Timlin managed to get a third out, it was 14-10 and Fenway Park was as loud with boos for the Red Sox as it has been in a long time.

By the time it was Coco Crisp against Scott Proctor, another guy you worry about having an arm fall off, in the bottom of the seventh, Game 2 was past four hours at Fenway, and we were past midnight and this mess of a game and a doubleheader wasn't close to being over.

Game 2 had started at 8:07. After 32 hits for the two teams and 24 runs, the top of the eighth was starting at 11 minutes after 12. There was a time when these two teams played unforgettable baseball at this time of the morning, especially in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. Now they had given us Ponson and Lester and Villone and Bruney and Julian Tavarez, Mike Myers and Kyle Farnsworth (who took a wicked shot off his leg and had to leave the game) and Scott Proctor. Maybe it will be a great rivalry today when it is Josh Beckett and Randy Johnson, two old Yankee-killers, one a Yankee now, going against each other.

Maybe it will be that way tomorrow night when it is Curt Schilling against Mike Mussina.

There were so many batting stars for the Yankees yesterday and today, because there have to be when you score the way they did against a boneyard bullpen. Johnny Damon had a couple of home runs and A-Rod hit and Giambi Jason hit and Capt. Jeter had the biggest one of the whole day, of course. And Melky Cabrera, who probably won't have a job here next season, had a huge hit in the middle of the seven-run top of the seventh for the Yankees in Boston.

This was one of those nights to make you wonder how anybody can get the Yankees out when they get back Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield.

There is a ridiculous amount of offense on this team even without them, on display in Boston yesterday at a ridiculously long doubleheader that didn't involve a rain delay or extra innings. When the sweep was over, people were comparing it to 1978, when the Yankees came in, during that comeback summer, and beat the Red Sox, 15-3, and swept them four games.

It seemed like a good comparison to make, after all. By the end of this mess, near one in the morning, at the end of the longest nine-inning game in the history of the sport, you had the idea that these two games started right after those four games 28 years ago.