THE crowd rose in the eighth inning, trying to will a change of course for a game that had veered quickly, surprisingly and decisively away from the Yankees.
The Royals must have missed the memo that they were merely supposed to be a prop in a Yankee home opener of pomp, circumstance and victory; Slippery Rock to the Yankees’ Oklahoma. What was it that Apollo Creed’s trainer said to Apollo during his fight against Rocky? “He doesn’t know it’s supposed to be a show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!”
Kansas City had enough fight – and the Yanks enough ineptitude – to lead 7-4 before remembering they were the rocky Royals, likely the AL’s worst outfit, not the Rocky Royals. The Yanks scored twice in the eighth, the 54,698 chortling spectators sensing this game was back on script. It would have been so right for Johnny Damon to be hero in his first official day in pinstripes. But he whiffed on three pitches for the second out against Ambiorix Burgos, siphoning the noise out of the Stadium. But that only set up something that felt more right.
“I thought we still had a chance,” Derek Jeter said.
Of course, he did. This is how he is built – aggressive and confident. That the crowd had gone timid once more following Damon’s disappointment did nothing to diminish that aggressiveness or confidence. Jeter did not even give the fans the time to build back to a frenzy. He aggressively and confidently went after the first pitch, which for all purposes was really the last pitch of this game. Damon, the new guy, did not decide the outcome. Derek Jeter won it. Mariano Rivera saved it. Same as it ever was in 2006, a familiar Bronx tale.
The Yankees won 9-7 because Jeter launched a Burgos splitter into the left-field seats for a three-run homer, then Rivera preserved the lead. It was an end-game reminder that even with yet another new star in town in Damon, the Yanks continue to need the cornerstones of the Joe Torre Era to be special. A decade after their first championship season together, when it comes to the most pressurized moments, Torre still wants Jeter up at the plate and Rivera up on the mound.
That Game 1 in the Bronx turned pressurized reflected real areas of worry for the Yanks. Chien-Ming Wang, just as he did in his opening start, disintegrated after the first turn around an opposing lineup. Tanyon Sturtze, who Torre has earmarked to share the eighth inning with the equally tenuous Kyle Farnsworth, allowed a homer on the first pitch he threw and two runs in the seventh to enable Kansas City to move ahead 7-4. And the Yankee offense again showed a disturbing lack of killer instinct, going 1-for-11 with men on base before the eighth inning and permitting the relief tandem of Mike Wood and Elmer Dessens to work 4 1/3 innings of two-hit shutout relief.
No Yankees hitter currently looks worse than Gary Sheffield, who was 0-for-5 yesterday, and has just one hit in 12 at-bats with men on base. Sheffield is an elite hitter. But he also burns when problems arise, and he is dealing with lingering steroid allegations, the imprisonment of his uncle Dwight Gooden and an unsettled contract issue. Sheffield struck out to end the eighth, but by then the previous batter had determined the game.
“I am glad Jeter is up,” Torre said. “When he goes to the plate, he is not affected by situations, except to make him more determined.”
The hard-throwing Burgos concluded his three-pitch strikeout of Damon in the eighth by overpowering the leadoff hitter with a fastball. Jeter decided he would see heat, as well. Not that it matters. Jeter always thinks fastball and always thinks swing, symbols of his aggressive bent. So he was quick on his swing, which enabled him to pull Burgos’ splitter.
Torre had already resolved that “Mariano was in the game” even if the Yanks stayed behind 7-6. Jeter’s homer merely gave Rivera a ninth-inning lead to protect for the first time in 2006. He converted.
New season, old story. Jeter won it, Rivera saved it.
joel.sherman@nypost.com
