Posted on 09/17/2004 8:27:59 AM PDT by presidio9
This is the kind of September we are supposed to have with the Yankees and the Red Sox. This is the way it is supposed to be, a series like this at the Stadium this weekend, then another one next weekend at Fenway Park. It wasn't supposed to be as easy as the Red Sox made it look in April. It wasn't supposed to be the kind of knockout punch the Yankees threw at Boston at the end of June, that three-game series when Derek Jeter, in addition to everything else, seemed to have taught himself how to fly.
It wasn't supposed to be the Yankees ahead by 10-1/2 games in August, as giddy as that made everybody around here feel, when the Red Sox were declared dead, and gone, again.
This, tonight at the Stadium, is the way it is supposed to be:
El Duque Hernandez with the ball in the top of the first tonight, trying to kick his leg to the upper deck and duck his head behind his shoulder and throw one of those breaking balls that starts out by Ruppert Place past Johnny Damon of the Red Sox.
Maybe last year isn't as good as the Yankees vs. the Red Sox could ever be. Because after everything that has happened between Game 7 last October and now, the sides are still even.
"A showdown in the Bronx," is the way Damon described this series the other night.
It is all of that.
It is not the kind of all-in, knockout baseball it used to be in the old days, the way it was in September of 1978, when it was the Yankees trying to come from way back in the pack. Barring a total collapse by the Red Sox - and it is hard to see them collapsing after the kind of good, clean hardball they have played lately - you can almost book both teams making the playoffs.
So no matter which of these two teams wins the American League East, it looks as if we will be right where we were a year ago after the regular season, hoping to get both of them through the first round, and into another series with a trip to the World Series on the line. Where it will be all-in, knockout baseball. Where everything could come down to one swing of the bat, the way it did with Aaron Boone, on the night when he finally ended the greatest Yankee-Red Sox season of them all.
But you have to know this: The Yankees don't want to blow the biggest regular-season lead they have ever blown. The Yankees do not want the Red Sox to come back from 10-1/2 behind on the 15th of August to win the AL East, whether they know they've got the safety net of the wild card or not. Because in their minds, they would be carried into October on a stretcher.
For now, we get these six games, starting with the ball in El Duque's hand tonight. Where would the Yankees be without him? Second place, is where. The big fat lead would be gone already. Alex Rodriguez was supposed to be the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox this season. We've got him, Yankee fans crowed. They don't. That was the first time the season was declared over, back in February, when it was announced that the Yankees had made a deal with the Rangers for A-Rod.
Only he has not been the difference. Somehow, even as he has hung up fairly gaudy numbers, even with the richest contract in the history of sports, A-Rod has just been one of the stars on the Yankees this season. Just not the biggest. The Yankees are still ahead because Gary Sheffield has been the kind of batting star A-Rod was supposed to be. And because El Duque, with all his spin and mystery intact at whatever age he really is, remains one of the great big-game Yankee pitchers of them all.
Now he gets the biggest game he has had in a while, at least until he gets to the playoffs.
"[The Red Sox] are still trying to catch us," Derek Jeter said.
Only for about 900 years.
But for now, the two teams are as close as they could be. In the last two seasons, counting the 2003 postseason, the Yankees and Red Sox have played 39 games. Thirty-nine. The Red Sox have won 20 and the Yankees have won 19. All those games, and really only one swing from Boone separating them.
The Red Sox don't go away. They made their run and now the Yankees have won eight of their last 10. There is a great wild-card race in the National League East. But this is something different. This is the Yankees against the Red Sox. The season started with all those games between them in April. Now here we are again, 11 months, exactly, from Aaron Boone.
Curt Schilling is with the Red Sox now, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are gone from the Yankees. Nomar Garciaparra is gone from the Red Sox. The Red Sox tried to cut Manny Ramirez of Washington Heights to get A-Rod and now Ramirez might be MVP. The Yankees got A-Rod. We get the September we wanted. It is the September we always want. Somehow, the sides are still even.
What was that? Those yanks just stood there!
He's been doing this since that WS game. He's shaky sometimes.
Jesus Saves!
Oh yeah, we got Kenny Lofton for his great defense. Too bad he hasn't shown much of it this year. :(
Foulke also saves games.
"Ain't over till its over." Yogi the Zen MAster
I thought it was for his excellent baserunning.
Uh, maybe five years ago. Looked like Strawberry back in patch days at Shea.
Foulke is a good guy. He wore an American flag on his cap earlier this year as his tribute to our troops. Stupid MLB made him stop wearing it because of uniform rules.
I can't believe we got the lead on a Matsui Special.
Have you noticed there just arn't any spectacular centerfielders in the game any more?
Rocco Baldelli has a chance to be one, too bad he is on the D-Rays.
Well, here's our Golden Glove team.
Replay shows Lofton misjudging the pop out...
A Lofton Special, but I get your point. They just showed a replay of it, and Mariano looked visibly angry. He's not known for showing his emotions, so it's kind of a shocker.
Don't jinx us on defense!
In a MFY-Red Sox game? You bet. It's always a heart-stopper.
1 down.
Eek. This is going to be brutal.
"CANCEL THE SPRINKLERS, NO SPRINKLERS DAMN IT, THE TIME FOR SPRINKLERS HAS PASSED" -- Steinbrenner
Tough to pick up thos epop ups with the big swing sometimes at the Stadium but Lofton gets the big bucks to do it. To quote Diminutive Dick Gephart, a miserable failure on Loftons part.
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