OAKLAND – Seven-run leads seems inadequate these days. Gems by starters are in danger of being flushed shortly after the dugout phone connects with the bullpen.
When manager Joe Torre goes to his relievers
– the strength of his staff across the first half of the season – Yankee fans cross their fingers very tightly, because Torre’s pen is loaded with a poison ink.
With crunch time swiftly arriving in the AL East, a strong point has quickly morphed into a question mark so serious that it glossed over yesterday’s 10-6 Yankees win over the A’s in front of 43,099 sun-splashed fans at the Coliseum.
Asked to protect a 10-3 lead in the ninth inning and close out Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez’ second straight victory, Mike Stanton was miserable again, giving up a three-run homer to Staten Island native Frank Menechino, a .239 hitter.
When Jason Giambi singled and Ben Grieve walked with two outs, Torre was forced to bring in All-Star closer Mariano Rivera for the final out.
Rivera allowed the Yankee dugout to exhale when he popped up Miguel Tejada to nail his 28th save.
“Whether Mo [Rivera] has gotten work in or not, that’s not the point, the point is that I have a seven-run lead and I can’t hold it? Come on,” said Stanton, who has given up one homer in each of his last four appearances.
Luckily for Stanton, the Yankees spanked Mark Mulder and Omar Olivares for 10 runs across seven innings and El Duque had a enough bite on his change to hold the A’s to three runs in seven innings.
“We haven’t over-used him, but I didn’t want to use the closer because you don’t want it to be that close,” Torre said. “We had a pretty dominating day and you would like Nellie [Jeff Nelson] to come in and do his job and Stanton to come in and do his job and go on about your business. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good day for Mike.”
But it was for El Duque, who evened his record at 10-10 and established a season-high in strikeouts with 11. His career high is 13.
Hernandez has reached double-digit win totals in each of his three big-league seasons, and is beginning to give the Yankees confidence that he can be counted on down the stretch.
“He was fine, I thought he threw too many balls,” Torre said of El Duque, who fired a season-high 134 pitches. “I thought his stuff was good. He had a couple of men on and all of a sudden he would dig in and get them out.”
Making El Duque’s job easier was Clay Bellinger going 3-for-4 with two triples and three RBIs. Jose Canseco marked his first start in left field since last July with a laser homer to center leading off the third, and Luis Sojo’s magic wand produced three hits.
Never in any danger thanks to a 6-0 lead by the time the Yankees were out in the third, El Duque gave up a two-run homer to Eric Chavez in the third and an RBI single to Miguel Tejada in the sixth.
“I wasn’t worried about [pitch count], I was prepared for this,” said El Duque, who will get an extra day of rest due to Thursday’s off day. “I feel the same. I feel OK. I feel good.”
The Yankees would love for Stanton to figure out a way to escape a very serious funk. So would Stanton.
“I am not locating fastballs,” said Stanton, who has given up 11 hits, three walks, nine runs and four homers in his last four appearances, which have totaled three innings. “I am putting balls in places where I am getting killed.”
