Yankees 4
Tigers 2
SO, just how are the Yankees going to get past the White Sox in the opening round of the playoffs, when last night they could barely get by the Tigers, who may be the worst team of all time?
The answer is simple.
The Yankee bullpen has finally arrived for the 2003 season. Just in time for the real fun.
With 19 games to go, the rebuilt pen is coming together and a big reason for that success is a pitcher the Yankees claimed on waivers just to keep him away from the enemy. That would be lefty Felix Heredia, who is likely to force a much bigger name off the post-season roster.
Heredia pitched two scoreless innings last night, one of four relievers who held the Tigers scoreless the last 41/3 innings as the Yankees managed to move one game closer to locking up the AL East with a 4-2 victory at the Stadium.
The victory kept the Yankees four games up on Boston in the loss column, and that’s all that really matters.
Because of turnover and injury, the bullpen has been a mess all season, but Joe Torre can see it all coming together on a night he used Heredia, Jeff Nelson, Gabe White and, of course, Mariano Rivera in relief of Jose Contreras, who came up with a sprained left ankle and couldn’t make it out of the fifth inning.
When I asked Torre if he has a better sense of his bullpen now, he answered, “I’m getting there.” And then came Torre’s key comment. “Heredia looks like he can be a wild card for us. To use him there in the fifth inning, that’s something we haven’t tried with him before and he got us to the other guys. It looks like he’s durable, too.”
Durable and reliable. And get this: In the 1997 World Series with Florida, the rookie Heredia appeared in four games, pitched 51/3 innings and did not allow a run, struck out five and surrendered only two hits.
Noted veteran reliever Nelson of the lefty, “He’s not going to get rattled out there.”
“I’m feeling comfortable,” Heredia said of his Yankee experience. “It’s been good.”
Nelson didn’t get rattled last night when he came on with the score 2-2, the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh. He struck out Craig Monroe looking. Nelson had only one thing on his mind at that point.
“You just say, we’ve got to win,” he explained, noting that the Red Sox were pounding Baltimore. “I look up on the scoreboard and I see Boston is up big on Baltimore.”
A loss to the Tigers and heads might have rolled. They wouldn’t have, of course, but some owner we all know would have been screaming that the sky is falling. Again.
White got the win, throwing one pitch for the final out in the eighth and then Rivera mopped up after the Yankees scored two in the bottom of the eighth. Rivera made a fielding error to make it interesting, but then got a fly out and struck out Dmitri Young on three vicious pitches. After hitting a batter, Rivera induced Monroe to fly to right to end the game.
“That’s the first time I ever faced him,” Young said of his Mo mismatch. “That’s why he is the best closer in the game.”
Gushed Tiger manager Alan Trammell – and this comment shows how we’ve all taken Rivera for granted – “God, he’s a keeper isn’t he? I’d love to have him.”
Torre is loving it. “Mo’s had great stuff the last four times he’s pitched,” the manager said.
“I feel great,” Rivera noted. “Adding Heredia has been good for the bullpen. The guy comes in and throws strikes and gets people out. That’s what you want from a lefty.”
That’s what the Yankees are getting from their bullpen now.
Just in time for the real fun.
