Yankees 4 – Rangers 3
We’ll never know, until the season is complete, how great an impact Tuesday night’s palpitating 14-13 comeback had on the Yankees. It’s just too early to tell whether the remarkable escape from a 9-0 second-inning grave was a short-lived thrill or a springboard for the ultimate success.
This much can be reported: The short-handed Bombers stayed on the winning track last night with a 4-3 decision over Texas behind Jorge Posada, the hero of Tuesday’s walk-off victory; and Chien-Ming Wang, who gave a weary bullpen most of the night off with eight innings.
“I think we can go back and look at that, for sure,” Joe Torre said of Tuesday’s historic victory. “When you come back in a game like (Tuesday), and everybody contributed, it has to do something for your confidence. Especially following it up with a game like tonight.” Posada – who smashed a twoout, two-run, game-winning bomb the night before, drove in the first two runs with RBI singles. Meanwhile, Wang recorded his second straight quality outing, needing only 81 pitches. He was working on a four-hitter into the eighth when Gary Matthews Jr. tagged him for a two-run homer to right that cut the lead to one run.
“Aside from that, he was terrific,” Torre said.
Mariano Rivera notched his eighth save with a perfect ninth, redeeming himself for the shaky outing on Tuesday in which he allowed the go-ahead run.
Although Hank Blalock just missed the game-tying homer with a long foul to right with one out, Rivera whiffed him on high 95 mph heat on the next pitch. A popout to short from Kevin Mench ended the game.
After Posada’s RBI single to left plated Derek Jeter in the first inning, the Yankees gave a run back in the fourth on errant defense by Robinson Cano, who committed two errors and looked shaky for much of the game.
“It won’t happen again,” Torre said. “Probably after he messed up a couple times, he started thinking about it.” Cano dropped a potential double-play exchange on Blalock’s grounder with one out and one on, and both Phil Nevin and Blalock were ruled safe.
Mench then knocked in Nevin with a single to left, but he was out trying to stretch it into a double.
Wang settled down and escaped the inning, and used twin killings in the next two frames to escape threats.
“He doesn’t get rattled by the things that happen behind him,” Posada said. “He just keeps coming.” Jason Giambi, who left Monday’s game with whiplash and missed the Tuesday comeback, returned to the lineup at DH and sparked the three-run, go-ahead, fifth-inning rally with a two-out double to left-center.
Giambi, who believes he could start in the field by this weekend’s series with the Mets, called Tuesday’s walk-off win “unbelievable” and “one of the best games I’ve ever witnessed, no doubt about it.” After Alex Rodriguez reached on an error, Posada ripped a single off the mound and into center, and Cano and Bernie Williams followed with RBI singles.
“It doesn’t matter what I’m hitting,” Posada said. “Right now I just feel good, I feel comfortable, I feel like I’m doing a lot of things good. Staying behind the ball.
“Getting that big hit with two outs is important. Hopefully I can continue that the whole year.” If the Yankees (23-15) continue to play well over the long haul, it will be the strength of the rotation, Torre said. Momentum is only as good as the next day’s pitcher, the saying goes, and Wang was certainly dominant.
“Even when you’re at full strength, pitching is so important,” Torre said.
