IN a time of private grief, it was opportune to have a private plane. Mariano Rivera rode in to rescue Game 1 of the ALCS Tuesday night, getting Kevin Millar to pop out and Bill Mueller to ground into a double play with the tying run on.
The only way it could have been more dramatic would have been if Rivera had parachuted out of the fighter planes doing the pre-game flyover, or arrived, like Challenger the bald eagle, on Joe Torre’s arm on the mound.
It’s good to be the manager if you have the greatest post-season relief pitcher in history, almost as good as having a lineup that can get you up eight runs on these Red Sox, rather than just seven.
Now, we get to the part not so good, the Yankees needing Rivera, after a flight almost as long as Jason Varitek’s homer off Tanyon Sturtze, in a game where starter Mike Mussina had been only eight outs from a perfect game.
Bernie Williams made sure it ended as only a crazy night, which under the circumstances sure beat a shocking and depressing night, thanks to a well-sung hero with a heavy heart, no applications being taken this time for any unsung ones who preceded Rivera out of the bullpen.
The seventh inning, when Sturtze replaced a rapidly tiring Mussina and gave it up to Varitek, is supposed to be the Yankee trouble spot, not the eighth, but Tom Gordon gave up a two-out, two-run triple to David Ortiz. Hideki Matsui could have caught it, but two more feet and it was also a home run and the game would have been tied.
Fortunately, Tim Wakefield had allowed the Yankees to extend the 6-0 lead to 8-0. And Mike Timlin, who had a place temporarily scratched out on New England lavatory walls right below Bill Buckner’s when he gave up a slam to Vladimir Guerrero to tie Game 3 of the Anaheim series, couldn’t get Williams out, Manny Ramirez’s failure to make hardly a routine catch notwithstanding.
So, because the Red Sox bullpen was a little worse than the Yankees’, New York took Game 1, 10-7, but that can change from night to night and probably will.
If Curt Schilling doesn’t do any better in Game 5, the Red Sox probably will lose two games this series they expected to win. But five to seven games will come down to the bullpens for no better reason than games almost always do. And more to the point, since it is the rare team that makes the playoffs without an accomplished closer, series really pivot on the setup guys.
A 6-0 lead had become 7-5 by the fourth inning of the fifth game of the 2000 division series against Oakland, the Yankees and Andy Pettitte on fumes when Mike Stanton came in to restore order in the one series during this run the Yankees probably had no business winning.
The Twins went down last week when Joe Nathan went a third inning, and Juan Rincon was left in too long in one, a reflection of a lack of bullpen depth as much as Ron Gardenhire’s judgment. The Red Sox went down fatefully last year when Grady Little didn’t want to trust a bullpen that had been doing surprisingly good work.
Timlin had a solid year, (4.13 ERA, opponents batting average .257) but is suffering a crisis of confidence now. Gordon had given up eight hits and seven runs in seven post-season innings coming into this postseason, but had been having a good playoff, finally, until Tuesday night, so we’ll see. But the absence of a situational lefty for a Trot Nixon or a David Ortiz key at bat remains an Achilles heel.
Advantage to the Sox, who have Alan Embree in that role. And, to the manager who doesn’t overextend his relievers. Because in the long run, especially with two teams who hit like these, the seventh and eighth innings is when post-season games change, not often the ninth.
