ORIOLES 11
YANKEES 4
BALTIMORE – Mike Mussina enjoys the give and take with reporters more than anyone in the Yankees’ clubhouse. He listens, agrees, disagrees and voices his educated opinion.
Yesterday morning, however, Mussina wasn’t wild about discussing the four-game series with the Red Sox that opens tonight at Yankee Stadium with Mussina matched against Josh Beckett.
To others, Red Sox-Yankees in The Bronx in June with first place in the AL East on the line is Baseball Armageddon. To Mussina, they are four games on a 162-game slate.
“The public plays it up and we try to play it down,” he said. “We always try to play our best baseball. Just because it’s the Red Sox doesn’t mean we go to another level. If we get hyped up we don’t play as well.” While Mussina’s words won’t be splattered on the Red Sox clubhouse wall, they dovetail with how Joe Torre approaches each of the 19 games. “I see it and we talk about (getting too high),” Torre said. “We know it’s a baseball game and if you attach any more significance to one game in the standings then you are really getting away from what you need to do.” Still, Torre knows the charged atmosphere in The Bronx makes it different than any other team in third base dugout.
“It will be a nuthouse, but it will be our nuthouse,” Torre said.
The Yankees are 3-4 against the Red Sox and the last time they were at Yankee Stadium they watched Hideki Matsui break his left wrist. Since then, the Yankees have lost Gary Sheffield with a left wrist problem.
Like last season, the Red Sox haven’t been able to put the Yankees to sleep. A year ago today, the Sox held a six-game lead that was headed for seven. And the Yankees won the East based on a 10-9 ledger against the Red Sox. While the Yankees lost Matsui and Sheffield to injury and Randy Johnson stumbled through two months, the Sox failed to separate from the Yankees, who they lead by one-half game. Matsui and Sheffield remain sidelined but Johnson, who pitches Thursday, is coming off two straight solid outings.
“Perhaps,” Johnny Damon said when asked if the Red Sox failed to take full advantage of the Yankees not being at full strength.
Normally, Fenway is crazier than the Stadium.
Yet, the sold-out crowd will be salivating.
To Torre, the players have to walk a fine line. “You feed off it,” Torre said of the energy.
“But the game itself, you still have to keep that in perspective. It’s not do or die.” More often than not – even with them meeting 19 times – the Red Sox-Yankee games are special. “We play them every other week,” Derek Jeter said. “I don’t know why we wouldn’t be ready.”
