Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 4

In today’s edition, the first series of the 2003 regular season took place at Fenway Park May 19-21 and the Yankees won two of three. In between the two New York victories, the Red Sox hammered Jose Contreras, the pitcher who had spurned Boston in the offseason to sign with the Yankees.

Joe Torre was always someone who was going to spin any negative, perceived or otherwise, into a positive. That’s just who he was, and it really didn’t make him much different from any other baseball manager, football, basketball or hockey coach.

The men who lead teams make it their business to make you - the fans - believe that all is well, and when it comes to their players, they’re always going to defend them to the hilt, especially when things go wrong. Most fans see right through the bullshit, but it doesn’t stop them from trying to sell it.

Even a man like Torre wasn’t averse to breaking one of the 10 Commandments that were drilled into his head during his Catholic school days in Brooklyn and reinforced by his older sister who became a nun, the one about not bearing false witness. In other words, don’t lie.

So, moments after the final out was recorded in the Yankees’ ugly 10-7 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park, on a night when prized free agent Jose Contreras was pummeled for five earned runs while recording only four outs, Torre should have headed straight to the confessional booth after saying this:

“I was very pleased,” he said regarding Contreras’ performance who everyone else would have considered downright awful. “I thought this was more of a plus than a minus, in the long run. I thought his command was much better than when he left. I thought his stuff was better, and he seemed to be more confident in letting the ball go.”

Upon hearing or reading that, Yankees fans must have been rolling their eyes and breaking another of the Commandments, thou shalt not use the Lord’s name in vain.

It was way too early to start coming to definitive conclusions about Contreras, but in the early going in 2003, it certainly appeared like the Red Sox dodged a bullet when the Larry Lucchino-termed Evil Empire outbid them for Contreras. And, though Torre and Brian Cashman would never admit it, they had to be wondering what the hell they had done, giving the Cuban defector $32 million.

George Steinbrenner? Oh, you know he was raising bloody hell over being convinced to give that money to a 31-year-old who had never pitched in the major leagues, he being of legendary impatience.

Contreras was unable to beat out Jeff Weaver for the fifth spot in the rotation during spring training, though that wasn’t a huge surprise. The plan was to have Contreras ready if one of the top five got hurt, and then slowly get used to big-time baseball by working out of the bullpen.

However, his first five appearances were a nightmare. Five innings, six earned runs on 11 hits and seven walks for an ERA of 10.80 and an on-base percentage against of .548. Yes, more than half the 31 batters he faced reached base.

This prompted not a demotion to Triple-A Columbus, but a trip back to the spring training complex in Tampa on the orders of an irritated Steinbrenner. The edict from the boss was simple: Fix this guy’s out of whack mechanics and build back his confidence. When the Yankees’ development staff, led by pitching guru Billy Connors, felt like he was ready, Contreras made a couple low-level minor league appearances, then returned to the Yankees in time to make this appearance in the middle game of the first series of the year against the Red Sox.

When the Yankees arrived in Boston for the three-game set, they were in the midst of a brutal 7-12 stretch that had largely undone their remarkable start to the season. They won 20 of their first 24 games and opened a five-game lead on the Red Sox after play concluded on April 26, and they had done that without Derek Jeter who had suffered a shoulder injury sliding into third base on Opening Day in Toronto and missed the next six weeks.

But now, as they settled into their hotel on Sunday night, May 18, they were tied for first with the Red Sox after being swept three straight at Yankee Stadium by the Rangers.

Which is exactly what Cashman was thinking. Crazy as it sounded with the Red Sox fearsome lineup devouring opposing pitching staffs, playing their arch rival might be the perfect elixir for the slumping Yankees.

“Maybe going into the jungle (Fenway) will shock us back into playing good baseball,” Cashman said. “Maybe that’s what we need because we look real flat right now. That’s how you look when you’re not playing well, when you’re making errors, when you’re not hitting. … You can describe it any way you want, but it’s not good. And we’re better than this.”

Sure enough, the Yankees came out with their collective hair on fire as they pounded Boston starter Casey Fossum for five runs in the top of the first inning, the big hits a two-run single by Jason Giambi and a three-run triple by Hideki Matsui and cruised to a 7-3 victory. For one night, the pressure the Yankees had been feeling had subsided.

“We played well,” Cashman said. “I thought we played more aggressively. We played good defense and our pitching held up. It was closer to the Yankees team we’re used to seeing.”

Unfortunately, Contreras was close to being the same guy the Yankees had seen when he left the team a month earlier.

Things started well enough for New York when Alfonso Soriano hit the first pitch of the night from Bruce Chen way over the Green Monster, and over the new seats that were built above the 37-foot high wall. Chen threw that first pitch because Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez had been scratched from the start which certainly was great news for the Yankees. Chen gave up another run in the first, one in the second, the Yankees led 3-1 and Fenway was getting restless.

Weaver coughed up that lead in the fourth on Jason Varitek’s go-ahead two-run homer, but the Yankees went back on top with Chen out of the game, replaced by their old pal Ramiro Mendzoza. In his first game against the team he’d helped win four World Series, the first four men he faced singled and when the fifth inning ended, Mendoza was on the hook for three runs and New York led 6-4.

Contreras was summoned in the bottom of the sixth with two on, no out, and one run already in, but he got Varitek to ground into a double play and struck out Johnny Damon to preserve a 6-5 lead. However, Torre sent him back out for the seventh, a move that backfired. “I had visions of him taking us right to Mo,” Torre said of his plan to have Contreras cover the seventh and eighth before turning the ball over to closer Mariano Rivera.

Instead, Contreras yielded a walk and a double, then was told to intentionally walk Manny Ramirez because at this point, the Yankees knew all about Manny, but they weren’t sure what to make of the next hitter, David Ortiz.

This was his first game against the Yankees as a member of the Red Sox (he didn’t play in the opener), and he was 0-for-2 with a walk when he stepped in to face Contreras. And on the second pitch, the man who would become known as Big Papi scorched a drive to deep center that chased home the tying and go-ahead runs. It was the first of countless clutch hits Ortiz would register against New York over the next 14 years.

After a sacrifice fly and a walk, Torre mercifully hooked Contreras, and Sterling Hitchcock proceeded to allow two more runs to score, both charged to Contreras, and the Red Sox eventually held on for the victory.

“I tried to overprotect that one-run lead,” Contreras said through a translator in reference to the leadoff walk he issued to Todd Walker. “I should’ve attacked him. If he hits it out, he hits it out. I’m going to focus on the positive, keep working and look forward to my next appearance. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

The first two games were merely prelude to the main event, the finale in which Roger Clemens - now as reviled in Boston as he was once revered - would be taking the mound for New York seeking the 299th victory of his career, the first 192 of those coming as a member of the Red Sox.

With 35,003 fans crammed into the little bandbox, there was an unmistakable playoff atmosphere hanging in the cool spring air. This was no ordinary game on May 21, even if it was Yankees vs. Red Sox. This was one of the greatest pitchers of his generation, one of the greatest of all time, looking to take one more step toward immortality. And he would be doing pitching against his former team, in the uniform of that team’s century-old antagonist.

Clemens was a man who always brought overloaded adrenaline into his starts. And yes, as we would come to find out later, apparently he brought veins pumped with steroids, too. And as you might imagine on this night, he could have walked across hot coals barefoot and not felt a thing, though things didn’t start well.

After Giambi had staked him to a 1-0 lead with a first-inning homer off Tim Wakefield, Clemens gave up a one-out single to Walker and then served up a two-run homer to Nomar Garciaparra and the Fenway faithful roared with blood-thirsty delight. Clemens struck out two to end the inning, and then he settled into a nice groove.

He pitched four scoreless innings and when he came out for the sixth, the game was tied at 2-2 thanks to Soriano’s RBI single. Clemens retired Kevin Millar and Trot Nixon, then was touched for a single by Shea Hillenbrand. The next man up, Bill Mueller, lashed a line drive up the middle and before it made its way safely into center field, he hit Clemens on his right hand.

Torre, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and trainer Gene Monahan trotted out to the mound, but once they got there, they realized it was pointless to even try. Clemens wasn’t coming out of the game, and he proceeded to strand runners at the corners by whiffing Doug Mirabelli.

“He was fired up, trying to get us fired up,” Jorge Posada said. “Someone hit him, and he was still standing.”

Clemens walked off the mound and went into the clubhouse, and it was there where Torre and Stottlemyre laid down the law and told him his night was done.

But while Clemens was stewing, the Yankees put him in line for the win with a two-out rally that featured a single by Posada, a walk by Robin Ventura, and an RBI single by Raul Mondesi. Ventura tacked on an RBI double in the ninth and Clemens’ 299th victory was secure, and the Yankees 4-2 triumph clinched the series and put them back into first place by a game.

“Mel’s smiling about it now,” Clemens said after the game, “but we were arguing about it back and forth pretty good.”

Now, Clemens and the Yankees would pray that x-rays revealed no damage because after a four-game series against the Blue Jays, the Red Sox were coming to Yankee Stadium and Clemens was due up for the opener. To win No. 299 against the Red Sox was rewarding, but it would pale in comparison to reaching 300 against them.

“If I don’t have any broken bones, I’m pitching,” Clemens said.

NEXT WEDNESDAY: During the second series between the teams on May 26-28 at Yankee Stadium, Clemens went after his 300th career victory and this time, the Red Sox denied him. Still, the Yankees once again took two out of three.