The Yankees pounded out 10 hits in the first four innings last night against the awful Tiger pitching, but Joe Torre had no trouble picking out which was most important.
“I thought Derek [Jeter]’s was a big hit for us,” Torre said after Jeter blasted a three-run triple in the second inning as the Yankees made quick work of Detroit in their 9-1 win at the Stadium. “That was a huge hit. [Juan] Encarnacion almost made the play, but it was another great job.”
And although the Yankees wound up routing Detroit, Jeter’s hit was instrumental in putting the game away. After giving up two in the first, Detroit’s Hideo Nomo looked as if he was on the verge of settling down. He got the first two outs and then allowed a single to Scott Brosius, a ground-rule double to Jose Vizcaino and a walk to Chuck Knoblauch.
“In the last couple of games, we’ve been getting a lot of big, two-out hits,” Brosius said. “Those types of hits make a huge difference.”
Few more so than the one Jeter came up with. Nomo, who couldn’t find his control throughout his ineffective 22/3 innings, fell behind Jeter, 3-1 … and Jeter made him pay.
“I got ahead of him,” said Jeter, who upped his average to .323 and has 42 RBIs. “He can keep you off balance with his split-finger [fastball], so I tried to lay off it. Then at 3-1 with the bases loaded, I knew he had to throw a strike.”
Jeter drove the pitch to the gap in right-center. But since Detroit center fielder Encarnacion makes Michael Johnson look sluggish, he nearly got it. He didn’t, all three runs scored and the Yankees had a 5-0 lead that proved untouchable with the improved Roger Clemens on the mound.
“I saw it hit off the end of his glove,” Jeter said. “Fortunately, it kept slicing away from him.”
Jeter also singled, walked twice and scored a run. A great game by any standard, but a performance one would expect from an All-Star against the feeble Detroit pitching staff. To Torre, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Ever since he’s come back from the DL, he’s been terrific,” Torre said. “He’s come up with a ton of big hits.”
Last night was not a game that needed many and Jeter knew it.
“You could tell early on that [Clemens] had a lot of zip on his fastball,” Jeter said of the right-hander, who struck out 11 in eight innings. “You assume you’re gonna score a couple of runs and that will be enough for him. And then we got a couple of more.”
Jeter scored in the first after walking, when Paul O’Neill homered and singled Knoblauch to third in the fourth inning.
“It’s always nice to score a lot of runs and get them early,” Jeter said. “But it’s not going to happen all the time.”
With the way Clemens has been pitching lately, it seems a shame to waste an outburst like that on a night when he pitches.
“He’s starting to pitch like he did in the past when he faced us,” said an impressed Jeter. “When he spots his fastball, he’s trouble.”
