Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 7

In today’s edition, across three days at Fenway July 26-28, 2003, Boston’s Byung-Hyun Kim lost the first game in the ninth inning, then blew a save in the middle game only to be bailed out and wind up as the winner, before the Red Sox took the rubber game thanks to a couple bad pitching moves by Joe Torre that allowed Boston to win its first series against New York.

One of the primary reasons why Joe Torre enjoyed such a spectacular career as the Yankees manager was that he always had a great feel for the moment. Yes, he had several Hall of Fame players, and even more Hall of Very Good players at his disposal, but Torre knew how and when to pull the levers that would put his team in the best position to win.

He didn’t need binders full of analytical data to know when was the right time to alter his lineup, when to give a player a day off or another pep talk, when to send up a pinch-hitter, or make a pitching change. He let his instincts - which were developed across nearly five decades in the game - guide his decisions and more times than not they did not fail him. Oh, and he also had the old sage, Don Zimmer, by his side.

For proof, Torre counts 10 AL East division titles, six AL pennants and four World Series championships that the Yankees won in his 12 years managing in the most pressure-packed environment in the sport.

But one time where Torre’s instincts failed him came on the afternoon of July 27 at Fenway Park in the rubber game of the fourth Yankees-Red Sox series of 2003 when he made three pitching changes in one inning, one worse than the other, that resulted in a 6-4 loss.

Having split the first two games, the Red Sox pulled out all the stops in trying to win the series. They brought in actor James Earl Jones - who had been the long-time voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise - to recite the National Anthem in his best Evil Empire voice. It was a clear and pretty clever dig at the Yankees who Red Sox president Larry Lucchino had dubbed the Evil Empire several months earlier.

However, the Yankees had smirked at that ploy and were up 3-0 as the game moved into the bottom of the seventh because Jeff Weaver - who began the day with a 5-8 record and 5.40 ERA - was pitching one of his best games of the season.

Trouble began to brew after he whiffed Kevin Millar to start the seventh, but walked Trot Nixon and hit Bill Mueller with a pitch, meaning the tying run would come to the plate in the person of switch-hitter Jason Varitek.

With Weaver’s pitch count at 113, Torre summoned lefty Chris Hammond from the bullpen, partly because of the pitch count, but also to get Varitek turned around to his weaker right-hand side. And, the next batter, Johnny Damon, was a lefty swinger. The logic was sound, but the way Weaver had locked up the Sox all day, he may have deserved a little more trust at a time in baseball when throwing 113 pitches was a felony.

So Weaver was left to angrily spike a towel into the dugout floor and mumble a few swear words under his breath when three pitches later, he watched all his great work and a chance at the victory go to waste when Varitek electrified Fenway with a three-run bomb over the Green Monster that tied the game. “We brought in the guy I wanted to bring in at that point,” said Torre. “We just didn’t get the job done.”

That was quite an understatement because the fans hadn’t even settled down when Damon lined Hammond’s 10th and final pitch just inside the Pesky Pole in right field to give the Red Sox a 4-3 lead.

If the call for Hammond could be defended, Torre’s next two moves really couldn’t. He yanked Hammond in favor of the historically unpredictable Armando Benitez who had changed boroughs 10 days earlier in a trade with the Mets that included one of the Yankees’ bullpen arms, Jason Anderson, relocating to Queens.

This was the same Benitez who earned permanent villain status among Yankees fans in 1998 as a member of the Orioles when he threw a 98 mph heater into the back of Tino Martinez which touched off one of the wildest brawls the Yankees had ever been involved in. This was also the same Benitez who could be unhittable on some days, and absolutely useless on others with a lengthy list of infamous late-inning meltdowns during his first 10 years in the big leagues with the Orioles and Mets.

He promptly gave up a single to Walker, followed by a stolen base by pinch runner Damian Jackson. Benitez induced Nomar Garciaparra to ground out, but here, Torre played another hunch that blew up in his face.

Rather than have the hard-throwing Benitez go after Manny Ramirez with first base open, he gave the ball to soft-tossing lefty Jesse Orosco - 46-year-old Jesse Orosco, by the way - so that he could intentionally walk Ramirez to set up a double play opportunity in a lefty-on-lefty matchup against David Ortiz.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with going for the platoon matchup, but this seemed suicidal. Orosco, having just joined the Yankees five days earlier and running on fumes in what would be the final months of his 24-year career, facing Ortiz who was just starting to emerge as a player bound for the Hall of Fame was a complete mismatch.

To the surprise of no one, Ortiz lashed Orosco’s second offering deep to right field for a two-run triple that made it 6-3, and those two runs proved critical when the Yankees rallied for a run in the ninth against Byung-Hyun Kim which left them those two runs shy in the 6-4 loss.

“I’m confident in these guys,” Torre said in light of the six-run implosion, the only inning Boston scored. “Just because we didn’t do the job tonight doesn’t mean we don’t have the right guys.”

Well, it was clear that Benitez and Orosco weren’t the right guys. Less than two weeks later Benitez was sent to Seattle in a trade that brought former Yankee stud and four-time World Series champ Jeff Nelson back to the Bronx. And at the end of August, Orosco was shipped to Minnesota for what amounted to a bag of balls.

When the Yankees arrived in Boston they were 2.5 games up in the division, and they were lucky they didn’t leave town in second place because they were dangerously close to being swept.

In losing a series to the Red Sox for the first time, the only victory came in the Friday night opener, a 4-3 triumph in a game where Benitez coughed up a 3-2 lead in the eighth by allowing a single and a walk which forced Torre to bring in Mariano Rivera. And shockingly, Rivera gave up a broken bat blooper single to Varitek that tied it.

However, the Yankees old pal, Kim, blew yet another game to them in the ninth as Enrique Wilson greeted him with a leadoff single, stole second, took third on a groundout, and scored on Derek Jeter’s sacrifice fly. Then Rivera, who had more difficulty in his Hall of Fame career against Boston than any other team, nearly blew the game. Garciaparra doubled and Ramirez walked before Rivera struck out Millar and got Jeremy Giambi to ground out as Fenway moaned in disgust.

“To come away with a win in this ballpark, especially when Mo gives up the bloop single and we have to come back a second time, I thought that made it even better for us,” Torre said.

This was a game where the Red Sox were left shaking their heads, a not-so-uncommon thing for them. They had their ace on the mound, Pedro Martinez, facing David Wells who was battling a back injury and walked almost as many batters (5) in his 5.2 innings of work as he had (6) in his first 134 innings of the season. “I couldn’t drive, so I was just flinging the ball up there,” Wells said. “It kind of worked, because they only scored two.”

Yes, just two runs despite all the traffic the relentless Red Sox created against him, particularly in the first two innings when they scored those two runs. In between all that, Posada had taken Pedro deep in the top of the second as Wells continued to pitch into and out of trouble, irritating the fan bases of both teams. It stayed 2-1 until New York pulled even in the sixth on an RBI groundout by Nick Johnson, and then took the lead in the seventh when the pesky Wilson singled and eventually scored with two outs when Bernie Williams singled to end Pedro’s night at 128 pitches.

There were obviously days when Pedro owned the Yankees, just like he owned so many other teams. But similarly to Rivera’s struggles against the Red Sox, the same held true for Pedro because this was the 13th time in his 21 starts to this point against the Yankees where they ultimately won the game.

“You really have to be conditioned to do it,” Torre said of facing him. “We’ve done it so often, knowing and respecting what Pedro brings to the table. You can’t think big against Pedro, because he doesn’t give you a whole lot.”

Given their history against Pedro, it wasn’t shocking that the Yankees won. Given their history against Boston’s Saturday afternoon starter, John Burkett, it was absolutely shocking that the Yankees didn’t win as they dropped a 5-4 decision.

Burkett had made nine previous regular season starts against the Yankees during his time with the Rangers and Red Sox and was 0-6 with a 9.66 ERA. In 41 innings he had allowed 48 runs on 80 hits and 17 walks.

“I don’t like to not have success against any team, especially a team you play 19 times in the regular season,” said the 38-year-old when he spoke to reporters the day before his start against Mike Mussina. “That’s not something that bodes well for your team, not just me individually, but for my team.

“Would I rather be dominant against the Yankees? Of course. But those aren’t the facts. The facts are they’ve pretty much beaten me up. But I think Grady still has confidence in me even if my numbers are not that good against the Yankees. He knows I’m not going to be scared. I’m not going to be intimidated by my previous appearances against them. He knows I’ll try to pitch my game, attack them, be intense, give all that I have.”

And Burkett did. He didn’t get the win because the Red Sox bullpen blew a 4-0 lead, but he pitched 5.2 scoreless innings and gave up three hits and three walks in what became a 5-4 Boston victory.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to John Burkett,” Millar said. “He threw a helluva game. He set the tone for us. This guy went out there and gave everything he had.”

He sure deserved better than a no-decision. The Red Sox jumped on Mussina for three runs in the first, two coming on a Garciaparra home run, and they made it 4-0 in the fourth on a solo homer by Ramirez.

But with Burkett in the clubhouse after throwing 84 pitches, relievers Alan Embree and Todd Jones gave up a pair of runs in the seventh on a single by Ruben Sierra, and then in the eighth, Scott Sauerbeck and Kim were responsible for the tying runs scoring on a double by Nick Johnson and a single by Karim Garcia.

Still tied in the bottom of the ninth, and with Rivera unavailable, Torre turned to Benitez because this was why Brian Cashman had acquired him, to be the closer when Rivera needed a day off.

Jeremy Giambi reached with a one-out single, but the Yankees thought they were out of the inning when Benitez struck out Varitek and Giambi, going on the 3-2 pitch, appeared to be gunned down by Posada. Jeter put the tag on him and instant replay showed that Giambi was indeed out. However, second base umpire Jerry Layne disagreed, and in 2003 there was no system in place to challenge these calls.

Torre, perhaps foreshadowing what was to come in the finale, made a managerial decision that backfired. He intentionally walked Damon with Damian Jackson due up next, and Little jumped all over that move by sending up Ortiz to pinch hit.

“Maybe they thought we didn’t have any options, but we had options,” Little said when he was asked about the free pass to Damon.

Torre stuck with Benitez, power against power, and Ortiz won the battle with a walk-off RBI single. Even here, it looked like Benitez had struck him out with an 0-2 fastball on the corner, but home plate umpire Marvin Hudson called it a ball and Ortiz ripped the next pitch for the winner.

“It was a mistake, a decision you make and you have to live with,” Torre said of facing Ortiz.

It was that kind of weekend for Torre and the Yankees, a series marked by poor decisions, poor pitching and not enough offense, all of which conspired to allow Boston to win two of three and pull within 1.5 games of first place.

“This Yankees-Red Sox, it’s fun,” said Ortiz.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: For one day, Fenway Park tabled its hatred of former Red Sox great turned traitor Roger Clemens, and showered him with love in what we all believed was going to be his last pitching appearance in Boston.