Wednesday, August 29th 2007, 4:00 AM
Derek Jeter, who hit a solo homer last night, isn't used to looking up at the Red Sox in the standings this time of year.
This was the season the Yankees were supposed to have. This was the way things were supposed to look and the way they were supposed to be, for Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, for Derek Jeter and the great Mo Rivera, the only surprise here, one of the great Yankee pitching surprises in such a long time, being the kid, Joba Chamberlain, who is suddenly treated like a young Doc Gooden by the 55,000 at the Stadium. The Yankees got ahead of the Red Sox early last night, and then when the Red Sox came back to tie, there was Johnny Damon hitting the kind of high shot to right that he used to hit here for Boston, a two-run shot that gave Damon's new team enough runs to win the game.
And there is more to the story than that. There is always more when Chamberlain comes through the bullpen door. This time the kid did it against the Red Sox, which is the Stadium version of earning your varsity letter. He walked Kevin Youkilis to start the top of the eighth, then he popped out Papi Ortiz and the place loved him more. He gave up a single to Mike Lowell after striking out Eric Hinske, in for Manny Ramirez by then because Manny had left the game with a sore back.
Finally Joba Chamberlain threw a dirty sinking thing on 3-2 to J.D. Drew and Drew waved at it like he was conducting the Pops and then Chamberlain ran into an even louder sound than he has been getting at the Stadium because this time the big eighth-inning outs had been against the Red Sox. Yankees 5, Red Sox 3. A good Yankee night when they needed one badly.
Just not the night it looked like it could be after the Yankees had cut Boston's lead to four games the Sunday before last. Not that kind of Yankee-Red Sox night at Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees had beaten the Tigers at the Stadium and they were going off on a trip to Anaheim and then Comerica Park, and if they could find a way to cut one more game off that lead, they would come home for a three-game series with a chance to tie the Red Sox. It was a bit of a longshot, of course, things breaking that way, since the Red Sox had seven games against the Devil Rays and the White Sox while the Yankees were on the road. Still. The Yankees had been 14-1/2 games behind Boston at the end of May and at the end of August they had it down to four and here they came.
Then the Red Sox did what they were supposed to do, and won six out of seven. And the Yankees looked like the beginning of May again. They gave up 18 runs one night in Anaheim. They gave up 16 runs the night before last in Detroit. Maybe there is a time when a winning Yankee team had two games like that as it got ready to move into September. Go find one.
The Yanks lost two of three in Anaheim. Three of four in Detroit. They lost them by huge scores, and they lost one in the 11 thinning at 3:30 in the morning. So they did not come home to play the Red Sox down four games in the American League East. Or three. They came home down eight. It is not the big series for the AL East that it looked like it could be when the Yankees left town.
But as Damon said in front of his locker when it was over last night and that home run of his had stood up the way the grand slam in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS stood up, "Let's face it, every series is a big series the rest of the way."
It is only Damon's second year in New York and already people have forgotten how big a deal it was supposed to be, the Red Sox losing him and the Yankees getting him. He broke in here like a star. Then he got hurt this year, had bad legs and a sore back and you heard his contract, for more than $50 million over four years, talked about the way the back end of Jason Giambi's contract is talked about, and Kei Igawa's, and even Carl Pavano's. Damon was another who was brought here to win the Yankees a championship the way he had done that in Boston, and early in this season he looked old and shot.
"Everybody's been in that boat," Joe Torre said in his office, "trying to play when you don't feel so well."
Damon still can't throw worth a lick, but never could. At least he is running balls down in the outfield, from left field last night with Hideki Matsui being used as DH. And Damon made the kind of swing from the leadoff spot he has been making for a long time. Good time for it, and about time.
"It's awful going out there knowing what everybody expects of you and not being able to do it," Damon said.
Then he said, "I was always a guy who could chase down fly balls. But when you don't have your legs underneath you, you start to worry."
He had his legs underneath him, and put all that air underneath that home run, and won the Yankees a game they needed. Good night for an old Boston guy, good night for old Yankees like Pettitte and Jeter and Posada and Rivera, for the rock-star kid out of the bullen. Just not the night we thought we might get a week or so ago, when the lead was down to four.
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