Red Sox 5 Yankees 4
BOSTON – When the Yankees leave footprints in the Fenway Park dew this morning to take part in the asinine tradition of playing a game at 11 o’clock on Patriots Day, they will have a hard time deleting yesterday.
After they swallow an ocean of coffee, the Yankees will remember third base umpire Tim Tschida’s blown call that cost them dearly. Finally, as they wipe sleep from their eyes, the Yankees won’t be able to do the same about a bottom-of-the-seventh meltdown or leaving four runners on base in the final two frames.
“It was ugly on both sides,” Derek Jeter said of the Red Sox, 5-4, win that was witnessed by a sold-out Fenway Park crowd of 32,127. “It was uglier on our side because we lost.”
Coupled with Mariano Rivera blowing a save Friday night, yesterday’s loss puts the 8-4 Yankees in the position of needing a win today behind Mike Mussina in order to leave Fenway with a split of the four-game series.
“A lot of crazy stuff happened all day,” said Andy Pettitte who faced the minimum of three batters in just one of his six-plus innings and needed an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play in the fourth to do it. “It was enjoyable for the Boston fans,” Pettitte added.
Until the home seventh, the Fenway denizens were looking at a 3-2 deficit that was the result of Paul O’Neill’s two-run homer, his fifth, off Hideo Nomo in the sixth inning that staked the Yankees to a 3-2 lead.
The Yankees received an omen that the seventh wasn’t their lucky inning immediately, when Alfonso Soriano lost Carl Everett’s blooper down the right-field line in the sun, had it glance off his wrist and go for a triple.
“I arranged the glasses and lost the ball,” Soriano said.
Manny Ramirez followed with an RBI double into the left-center field gap to score Everett and tie the score, 3-3. Dante Bichette’s single to left sent Ramirez to third. Jason Varitek’s single to left plated Ramirez for the go-ahead run.
Having watched Pettitte grind his way through six-plus innings in which he gave up 14 hits and a walk, Joe Torre called for Todd Williams. After fanning Brian Daubach for the first out, Williams gave up a sacrifice fly to Lou Merloni that scored Bichette. With Trot Nixon hitting for Mike Lansing, Torre called for the left-handed Randy Choate.
He missed catcher Jorge Posada with two warm-up pitches and had another glance off Posada’s glove. Choate hit Nixon, wild-pitched him to second, fell behind Darren Lewis, 2-0, and was replaced by Brian Boehringer. Boehringer left two runners on in the seventh and stranded three in the eighth to give the Yankees a chance in the ninth.
However, things would have been different in the final two frames had Tschida not made the wrong call on Ramirez’ sinking line drive to left in the fifth.
With Everett on first and two outs, Ramirez’ liner was caught by a sliding Chuck Knoblauch. However, Tschida ruled the ball was trapped even though multiple television replays showed Knoblauch getting his leather between the grass and ball.
“I caught the ball,” Knoblauch said. “It wasn’t even in the webbing, it was in the pocket.”
While Pettitte refused to use the blown call as an excuse, he gave up an RBI single to Bichette, the next batter, that staked the Red Sox to a 2-1 lead.
“My job is to get the next guy out,” said Pettitte, who is 2-1. “I didn’t have good stuff today. They battled and put the ball in play.”
Still, with six outs remaining, the Yankees had a chance. Especially with Red Sox closer Derek Lowe pitching poorly. But when O’Neill’s eighth-inning leadoff single was followed by a circus-act double play on the slumping (0-for-17) David Justice’s hard-hit ball, the Yankees knew they were in trouble.
“I smoked it right up the middle,” Justice said of the ball that glanced off Lowe’s glove, hit second baseman Jose Offerman’s glove and arm and popped into the air. Offerman snagged the ball with his bare hand and flipped it to Craig Grebeck for the out at second. Grebeck accepted the ball with his throwing hand and turned it into a killer double play.
As is their custom, the Yankees didn’t quit in the ninth. Scott Brosius extended his career-high hitting streak to 12 games with a leadoff single and went to second on Luis Sojo’s pinch-hit single to center. Jimy Williams had enough of Lowe and summoned Rolando Arrojo to face Knoblauch.
One pitch later first baseman Brian Daubach was tumbling into a pole in the middle of the Red Sox dugout after catching Knoblauch’s foul pop. Wisely, Brosius tagged and went to third. Jeter followed with a grounder to short that forced Sojo and scored Brosius to cut the deficit to 5-4. Arrojo ended the game by getting O’Neill on a lazy pop to short.
“I don’t know about upsetting, [the Red Sox] scored and there is nothing you can do,” Torre said of squandering a one-run lead in hitter-friendly Fenway. “In this ballpark, nothing should be upsetting. You pretty well anticipate anything may happen.”
