Mike Mussina was throwing a perfect game. Curt Schilling was sitting glassy-eyed in the Boston dugout with an ankle held together by some modern-age combination of duct tape and plastic. The Yankees had eight runs on the board.
And then the Red Sox gave the Yankees a harrowing reminder of how potent their lineup can be.
They put a five spot up in the seventh that stopped a chant of, ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ They put up two more in the eighth and had fans sitting quietly and uncomfortably in their seats.
“They did a lot of stuff when we thought they were finished,” Jorge Posada said. “But we still won the game.”
Yes, the Yankees won Game 1 of the ALCS 10-7 but not before the Red Sox had left a loud, clear message: These Sox won’t unravel like the pair of $1 yarns you can buy on Canal Street. These Sox keep swinging until they’ve clubbed their way back into the game or flailed trying.
What made Tuesday night’s rampage so impressive is that until Mark Bellhorn hit a double with one out in the seventh, the Red Sox couldn’t find Mussina’s knuckle-curve with a flashlight and a GPS device. But once they zeroed in – pow!
“They’re a good hitting club,” Mussina said. “They proved it. You let ’em into it and they start rolling and they keep rolling.
“We were fortunate that after we got up 6-0 we kept attacking, kept tacking on runs and then Bernie [Williams] got the big hit in the eighth that got the lead back to three. They’ve proved how explosive they are and why they’re a great ballclub. They’ve got a great lineup.”
The lineup is anchored by one of the most devastating power-hitting combinations in Boston history. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz combined for 84 home runs and 269 RBIs.
Ortiz came within inches of tying the game in the eighth when he tripled into the left-center gap. The ball went off Hideki Matsui’s glove and caromed off the top of wall, driving in two runs to make it 8-7.
The Yankees shouldn’t have needed a reminder in the power and resilience of the Red Sox. The Yankees had a 9-4 lead on the Sox July 24. Boston won 11-10. Tuesday night was almost a replay.
“It was like it was too good to be true,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “Each game is going to be an emotional roller-coaster, there’s no question.”
Not in the Yankees’ mind.
