Tuesday, May 22, 2007
NEW YORK -- The goal is to play nine clean innings at a time, which is to say, keep away from the monstrous numbers that still haunt the Yankees. Ignore the doomsday scenario, is what the corporate plan now says. Instead, the Yankees are reducing their world to one game, one win, one series at a time.
It might be a desperate way to cope with a double-digit deficit in the East. But hands on their hearts, the Yankees insist they're not finished yet.
Johnny Damon singles to lead off the game.
Exhibit A was Chien-Ming Wang's sinker, which effectively smothered the Red Sox in a 6-2 victory at the Stadium. It wasn't Wang's best work of the season -- actually he was forced to use more sliders and change-ups than usual -- but the Yankee right-hander was better than Tim Wakefield, who allowed six runs in five innings, including home runs to Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi.
And so the mini-fantasy draws its first breath: Can the Yankees re-insert themselves into the race by sweeping the Sox? They have favorable pitching matchups in two of the three games, which is why Wang's triumph was so critical: It was a game the Yankees simply had to have.
Tonight, they have Mike Mussina against Julian Tavarez, another should-win, with Andy Pettitte facing Curt Schilling in the series finale on Wednesday. Pettitte cautioned against obsessing over a perfect 3-for-3, "That's a pretty good team you're talking about." But the math says the Yankees had better think that broadly.
Put it this way: If the Red Sox merely play .550 the rest of the way and end the season with 95 wins, the Yankees will have to play .650 to beat them. It's not impossible for the Bombers to reach 96 wins, but it's more likely they'll finish with 90-93 wins and hope that's good enough for the wild card.
Alex Rodriguez watches a home run in the first inning.
The only variable here is that, after Monday night's game, the Yankees still have 11 more chances against the Red Sox. In other words, the playoffs already are here. It's either the opportunity of a lifetime, or else the Yankees' season could be ruined beyond recognition.
It all depends on those 11 games.
"I know it's easy for fans to think 'if [the Yankees] win all those games, we're back in it' but that's not realistic," Pettitte was saying before batting practice on Monday. "To me, it comes down to series. We don't have to sweep them, just take the series. And then we win another series and another and another. And somewhere along the line, we get some help [against the Red Sox] from the rest of the league, and they start to lose some series, too."
For this formula to work, the Yankees have to succeed on several levels, including their offense. Most notably, they need a significant contribution from all three outfielders, since it's hard to imagine Derek Jeter (.365) and Jorge Posada (.374) staving off a cooling off period for too much longer.
Bobby Abreu, in particular, is facing closer scrutiny from the front office, not to mention the Stadium crowd that booed him every time he made an out on Monday. The party line is that Abreu's problems are mechanical – he's pulling off the ball – but general manager Brian Cashman has been aggressively questioned by George Steinbrenner for failing to project the right fielder's decline this year.
Chien-Ming Wang follows through on a pitch in the first inning.
Cashman passionately has defended his decision to acquire Abreu from the Phillies last year, telling The Boss he was satisfied overall with the '07 roster. As the executive said at Shea over the weekend, "There isn't a general manager in baseball who wouldn't want to have our offense, with Wang, Pettitte and Mussina in the starting rotation with [Roger] Clemens coming and [Mariano] Rivera closing games.
"I still believe we have enough to win this thing," Cashman said. "We haven't played well, but I have faith in the team I've put together."
From here to October, all the little things will have an end-of-the-world feel to them. Like the miniature crisis that Wang left to the bullpen in the seventh. With one out, the Yankee right-hander walked Julio Lugo, and then allowed Kevin Youkilis to thunder a double to left.
With runners on second and third, Torre started that million-mile walk to the mound. Everyone in the ballpark took a deep breath in anticipation of the matchups that were taking shape -- Mike Myers against David Ortiz and Brian Bruney against Manny Ramirez. The unanswered question was whether the battered Yankee relief corps could be trusted with a five-run lead.
Jason Giambi strokes a solo home run in the second inning.
It's no stretch to imagine Torre crossing his fingers (tightly) as he handed the ball to Myers, who was pounded by the Mets for four runs and five hits in just two innings on Saturday. But Myers' assignment was more finite on Monday: he had one batter to worry about and ultimately, one outcome to guard against. Myers could not let Ortiz take him deep.
Turns out the damage was minimal, as Ortiz lifted a harmless sacrifice fly to left, after which Bruney got Ramirez to look at strike three -- a fastball that cut the plate in half.
It may or may not have been a miracle, but in a season already littered by bad baseball, the Yankees weren't complaining. In fact, their hearts might've just taken off on a silent sprint.
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