BOSTON – A post-game meeting between George Steinbrenner and Joe Torre ended with The Boss walking a pack of sportswriters to the edge of a private Fenway Park parking lot.
With the trading deadline approaching and the Yankees having blown two leads on their way to a 6-5 loss in the ninth to the Red Sox, The Boss was asked if the best team in baseball was in good enough shape not to make a deal.
“The manager thinks we are all right and I have confidence in the manager,” Steinbrenner said after his Bombers lost in Roger Clemens’ first trip to Fenway wearing a Yankee uniform. “But that’s not saying I won’t do something.”
On Friday, trades were the responsibility of Torre and GM Brian Cashman. Yesterday, following the Yankees’ third loss in four games, The Boss was in the saddle. And what he witnessed didn’t please Steinbrenner.
Clemens couldn’t hold the 2-0 first-inning lead given to him by homers from Chuck Knoblauch and Paul O’Neill. Nor could Clemens and Jason Grimsley protect a 5-2 lead after 4 innings. Fifteen Yankee hits had produced but five runs as the Yankees went 2-for-11 in the clutch. Finally, Ramiro Mendoza’s struggles continued when Jose Offerman hit the first pitch of the ninth inning to center field for a triple and scored when Shane Spencer gambled John Valentin’s fly to the left field corner would drop foul and it didn’t.
Asked if he saw anything that would force him to make a move, Steinbrenner shifted into Boss-speak.
“I don’t like to lose, nobody likes to lose,” Steinbrenner said. “When I saw Roger with a 2-0 lead and a 5-2 lead, I am ready to say, ‘The ballgame is over.’ But it didn’t happen.”
So, as they ventured into a perfect New England evening, the Yankees wondered what dawn would bring.
Had Clemens, Grimsley and Mendoza pitched better, The Boss wouldn’t have been thinking of acquiring reliever Roberto Hernandez. If Derek Jeter hadn’t choked one rally in the fourth and a scoring threat in the ninth by hitting into double plays, The Boss could have over-looked the pitching problems.
108 . 0000.00As for Clemens, his emotional return as a Yankee to the place where he spent 13 years didn’t go well. He expected to be booed and was often. What he didn’t expect was that a sweat-soaked right hand would rob him of his split-fingered fastball.
“Because it was real hot, the forkball kept slipping out of his hands,” Jorge Posada said. “So we went with fastballs and sliders.”
The velocity on the heater was fine and the action on the slider was okay. But location presented a problem.
“I wanted to go out and be aggressive,” said Clemens, who was booed from the moment he 108 . 0000.00walked in from the bullpen prior to the game until he was lifted in the sixth. “It wasn’t until the second inning that I remembered I was working on the sixth day and I had to tell myself to stay back. For the most part, I had to work to keep the ball down.”
Clemens didn’t get an 0-1 fastball to Trot Nixon down in the second and the No. 9 hitter crushed it 430 feet for the Red Sox first run. The second walk to Jose Offerman in three innings resulted in the Red Sox tying the score, 2-2.
RBI singles by Spencer and Chad Curtis in the fourth staked Clemens to a 4-2 lead and he took the mound for the 108 . 0000.00home fifth on top, 5-2, thanks to Tino Martinez’ ground ball to the right side that scored O’Neill from third.
A leadoff walk to Nixon led to the Red Sox cutting the deficit to 5-3 in the fifth. Knowing that Clemens was fighting himself on every pitch, Torre had his bullpen cranked before Clemens took the mound for the sixth. And when Nomar Garciaparra led off with a single to left, Torre summoned Grimsley.
“I wanted to have somebody ready in the event he had trouble throwing strikes,” Torre said of Clemens, who needed 94 pitches to cover five-plus innings in which he gave up four runs, five hits, walked three 108 . 0000.00and fanned two.
Jason Varitek’s ground ball up the middle with the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth was snagged by a diving Jeter. His toss to Knoblauch forced Butch Huskey as Garciaparra scored to make it a one-run game. Valentin’s double off the wall in left scored Offerman from first in the seventh to tie the score.
All that was left was for Offerman to triple in the ninth and Spencer to pray that Valentin’s fly ball was interfered with by a fan to extend the game. When it dropped fair, The Boss started thinking about changes.
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