Yankees 6 – Athletics 0
Fire Mel Stottlemyre? Are you kidding?
If George Steinbrenner is still considering boxing one of the best pitching coaches in baseball, then The Boss should be required to pee in a bottle.
Friday, Steinbrenner put Stottlemyre in his crosshairs when he said there was a chance a change could be made in the pitching department.
It was wrong then and now after Stottlemyre performed what could be the season’s biggest miracle.
The coach transformed Chicken-You-Know-What into a delightful platter of Chicken Salad yesterday at Yankee Stadium when Kevin Brown blanked the A’s through seven innings on the way to a 6-0 Yankees victory that was witnessed by 47,575.
“Good job, buddy,” Derek Jeter said to Stottlemyre on the way out of the clubhouse after the second straight Yankee shutout.
Brown, who entered the tilt with an 0-4 ledger and a hefty 8.25 ERA, sailed through the first inning, a frame that had killed him before. He then loaded the bases in the second without an out and didn’t give up a run. He pitched out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the fourth. Across Brown’s final three innings, he allowed one runner and retired the final 10.
Brown – who gave up 13 hits and eight runs in five innings last Tuesday to the Devil Rays – didn’t believe he was better against the hitting-challenged A’s.
“I didn’t feel that much different today,” said Brown, who was helped by the A’s making him only throw 17 pitches in his final two frames. “The difference today was they put the ball in play and at somebody.”
Staked to his first lead of the season on Alex Rodriguez’ AL-leading 11th homer in the fourth, Brown saw the bulge swell to 2-0 in the fifth on Hideki Matsui’s two-out RBI single to right.
Tino Martinez added a three-run blast in the eighth and Jorge Posada, the next hitter, reached the upper deck against Kiko Calero to save Mariano Rivera from working two games after throwing 50 pitches Friday night.
The struggling Tom Gordon hurled a perfect eighth. He reached 96 mph on the gun and began using the curveball that lately he’s been getting away from. Had Brown not escaped the second, ARod’s homer would have tied the score or drawn the Yankees closer.
But Brown was sensational thanks to a mound visit by Stottlemyre after he threw a high fastball to Keith Ginter with the bases drunk and no outs.
“I went out and it was a ground-ball situation and he threw a high fastball,” Stottlemyre said. “I told him the way to minimize the damage is to stay down.”
The cantankerous Brown responded.
“He said, ‘I just threw a pitch down and that was a base hit,'” Stottlemyre said. “I didn’t think the pitch (Erubiel) Durazo was down. I thought it was medium but I didn’t want to argue with him. The only thing I could think of real quick was, ‘Well, he was a low-ball hitter, this next guy is a high ball hitter.’ “
Stottlemyre admitted that wasn’t the scouting report but when dealing with Brown, you start by trying to get into a very hard head.
Ginter lined to A-Rod. Brown responded by fanning Eric Byrnes swinging on a 1-2 pitch and caught Marco Scutaro looking at a 2-2 offering. Brown left the bases loaded in the fourth by getting Scutaro on a pop to center.
“He did a good job of getting out of (jams),” Stottlemyre said. “Before it was a question of when he was going to make another mistake.”
Speaking of mistakes, Steinbrenner would be making a monumental one if he dismisses Stottlemyre, who performed a miracle yesterday.
