June
9, 2002: San Francisco Giants at New York Yankees, Yankee Stadium
Marquee
Matchup, Saved in the Nick of Time
In
age of increasing competition for our sports-loving eyeballshell, try a
weekend chock full with the NBA
Finals, NHL
Finals, a sibling-rivalry French
Open Finals, a potential Triple
Crown winner, and the heavyweight
bout to end all heavyweight boutswe viewers are subjected to a few predictable
strategies when it comes to selling those games.
One
is for an organization a league, say to introduce a novelty
into the sport in a misguided attempt to shore up its fan base. Take interleague
play, the wild card, or the designated hitter. Please.
Another
is for the promoters a network, perhaps to boil a complex
team sport down to an individual matchup, as if the two athletes in question
were slated to do-or-die swordfight at center court/ice/field for the honor
of their squads.
At
times it's necessary for a fan to tilt against windmills, summoning enough outrage
to rail at the powers who have sullied our games with gimmickry and crass machismo.
And at times it's preferable just to grab that ticket to a gorgeous Sunday afternoon
Yanks-Giants game featuring Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, and march up to Yankee
Stadium like a good little soldier. This, as you can probably guess, was one of
the latter occasions.
Played
to packed houses, the first two games of the Yanks-Giants series generated
enough electricity to light a borough: low-scoring affairs where the balance
seemed to hang on every pitch, and plenty of theater surrounding the game's
hottest ticket and most devastating offensive machine, Bonds. But this billing,
with the promise of two inner-circle Hall of Famersboth still more
than on top of their games facing
each other for the first time in their storied careers, this would be the one
you'd order from the catalog. Years from now, this would be the ballgame
you'd tell your grandchildren about as they sat on your knee just as surely
as your own grandpappy told you about watching Babe Ruth face Walter Johnson.
Few
things in life could stand up to that kind of hype, of course. But just as the
horse War Emblem had faltered at Belmont in pursuit of the Triple Crown the day
before and opened the door for the biggest
longshot in the race's history to win, so it was on this daythe fans
didn't get exactly what they expected, but they did get more than their money's
worth.
There
was no getting away from the central matchup at the outset, as Bonds, DHing and
hitting third, came to bat in the top of the first inning with two outs and nobody
on. This appeared to be a golden opportunity for Clemens to challenge Bonds with
his best stuff and relatively little consequence for failure, but manager Joe
Torre clearly thought otherwise. Even after directing the Yankee infield into
an extreme shift which had third baseman Robin Ventura playing at double-play-depth
shortstop, shortsop Derek Jeter playing at DP-depth second base, second baseman
Alfonso Soriano playing short right field, and first baseman Jason Giambi guarding
the line, Torre had Clemens pitch around Bonds, walking him "un"-intentionally
on five pitches.
This
move immediately came back to bite the Yanks on Clemens' ample posterior, as Giants
catcher Benito Santiago lined a double off of the right field wall. Bonds held
at third, but he scored moments later when Clemens bounced an 0-2 pitch to Reggie
Sanders off the plate and out of the reach of catcher Jorge Posada. The damage
was held in check when Sanders struck out a couple pitches later, but the Giants
had the lead.
The
Yanks responded in the bottom of the first with a two-out rally of their own.
Facing Russ Ortiz, Giambi cracked a single to left, Bernie Williams drew a walk,
and Ventura lined a two-strike single up the middle. From there, Ortiz asserted
control of the Yankee bats, however, striking out six of the next nine pinstriped
hitters.
Clemens
plugged along until he faced Bonds again in the third, when he succeeded in living
up to some pregame hype. This brand, however, came straight from his own mouth.
Asked by reporters prior to the series about the prospect of facing Bonds, Clemens
responded with a chest-thumper:
"Maybe
I'll introduce myself pretty quick," he
told reporters. "That big ol' piece of plastic he has on his elbow, we'll
see if we can't make him take that off and make it even, so we don't have that
thing sticking out over the strike zone."
Now,
the Rocket has a point when he talks about the armor Bonds wears on his right
elbow. It allows him to stand over the plate with near-impunity; no way does he
hit 73 homers and post one of the top offensive seasons of all time without that
protection. And he has a point when he protects the contested inside part of the
plate with the kind of gas that will weakens most players' knees. But Rocket,
ever the big donkey in the china shop, has a penchant for backing up his gruff
talk with a bit too much walk (just ask Mike Piazza), fueling plenty of fires
along the way and allowing hand-wringers like me to mix metaphors until the cows
come home to roost. Or something like that.
And
so here, again with two outs and nobody on, Clemens plunked Bonds on the plastic
on the second pitch of the at bat. Fifty-five thousand Yankee fans groaned, but
Bonds shook off the slight and trotted down to first. Again, it seemed the Yankee
strategy would backfire as Santiago, a mediocre hitter thorughout his career but
riding a hot streak at the moment, followed up with his second hit of the ballgame.
Again, Sanders bailed out the Yanks, this time by flying out to left.
The
Giants pulled ahead in the fifth. Pedro Feliz, batting ninth, singled to left,
and Tom Goodwin, president of the Fast and Otherwise Useless Centerfielders of
America, literally sacrificed himself to move the runner over. Goodwin collided
with Soriano, who was covering first as Giambi fielded the ball. The Yank second
baseman stayed down for several moments, but Goodwin, clearly shaken up, outlasted
him on the ground. When play resumed, SF shortstop Rich Aurilia stroked a double
over Williams' head in right-center, and the Giants reclaimed the lead.
That
brought up Bonds again, and this time the strategy was formulaic:
base
open + runner in scoring position + Barry Bonds = intentional walk
Not
exactly fun, but unquestionably the right call. Clemens rose up to strike out
Santiago and Sanders, ending the threat, and he struck out the next two batters
as well en route to his first 1-2-3 inning.
Feliz
triggered a nearly identical situation in the 7th with a single and another Goodwin
sacrifice. Aurilia grounded out this time, but again Clemens, under Torre's orders,
stuck to the formula and walked Bonds intentionally. This time, Ventura, standing
in against a flying broken bat fragment, speared Santiago's line drive to end
the frame.
The
Yanks, meanwhile, failed to make much of a dent. Ortiz buzzed Giambi back in the
third, drawing a warning to both benches from home plate umpire Joe West. This
in turn drew a visit from Giants manager Dusty Baker. Baker gave West an earful,
but the ump let him get his money's worth without tossing him.
West
seemed to bend over even further to accomodate the Giants outrage by not raising
an eyebrow (let alone a crooked thumb) when Ortiz plunked Derek Jeter on the wrist
in the sixth. Following that, the Yanks loaded the bases thanks to two walks.
But Jorge Posada struck out on three pitches, and rooke DH Nick Johnson, after
working the count from 0-2 to 3-2, looked at strike three as it came right down
the pipe to the collective groans of Yankee Stadium (minus the several fans boldly
outfitted in Giants regalia).
The
Yanks didn't get a hit off of Ortiz after Ventura's RBI single until Soriano's
two-out single in the seventh. While that hit went for naught, it and Jeter's
long at-bat which followed brought Ortiz to 123 pitches, his highest total of
the season. Baker brought out setup man Felix Rodriguez to start out the eighth,
a move which on paper, would have spelled doom for the Yanks; Rodriguez has had
two stellar years in a row setting up closer Robb Nen. But he's struggled this
year, allowing too many walks. Giambi made Rodriguez lived up to that promise
by promptly drawing a base on balls. Williams struck out, and Ventura momentarily
left the crowd breathless as he hit one deep to right-center. But Tsuyoshi Shinjo,
in the game as a defensive replacement, ran the ball down near the warning track
for the second out.
At
that point, with two outs in the eighth, Baker summoned Nen, a lanky triple-digit
flamethrower with a deceptive hitch in his motion. Nick Johnson stepped
in against him, looked at a strike and then swung through another. He drew
a ball from Nen, prompting me to turn to my roommate and utter, "Good morning,
good afternoon, and hold that thought."
I
was poised for the "good night" punchline, but Johnson surprised me and
every one of the 55,334 other fans. He drove Nen's pitch deep to right-centerfield,
well over the head of the shallow-playing Shinjo. The crowd erupted as
two runs scored, giving Johnson a double and the Yanks the lead. They continued
to draw blood from the Giants, as Rondell White slapped Nen's next pitch
into left field for an RBI single and a 4-2 lead.
Under
normal circumstances a two-run lead in the ninth inning Joe
Torre would call upon Mariano Rivera to close the door on the opposition.
But Rivera had been beaten by the Giants the day before, and according to
reports (which I didn't realize until later) was nursing a sore groin that
would likely require a trip to the disabled
list. So Torre brought on Steve Karsay, who's turned into the missing
piece of the Yankee bullpen puzzle thus far, posting a 2.06 ERA in 39
innings.
Karsay
retired Feliz on his first pitch, then got Goodwin on a grounder. But with the
Giants down to their last strike, Aurilia drew a walk on a full count, bringing
up... Barry Bonds. Sweet.
At
this point, the Yankees held a conference on the mound that included Joe Torre;
I was so confident that Karsay was getting the hook in favor of Mike Stanton that
I even cashed out his line in my scorebook (.2 innings pitched, 0 hits, 1 walk,
0 strikeouts...). But Torre stuck with Karsay to face Bonds.
And
so there it was. With the crowd on the edge of its seat, Bonds swung mightily
and whiffed. But Karsay missed on the next pitch, and the next, and the next.
With a 3-1 count, Karsay had his orders and intentionally walked Bonds, bringing
up Santiago. On Karsay's second pitch, the Giants catcher hit a sharp grounder
which third baseman Enrique Wilson (on as a defensive replacement) fielded cleanly,
firing to second for the forceout and the ballgame.
After
the game, Torre explained his strategy regarding Bonds: "Look, there's no question
there's no greater theater than the pitcher against the hitter,'' Torre told reporters.
"The 1-on-1 is great. But those people booing, I'd like to poll them and ask if
they'd rather go home with a victory or having seen Barry beat us with a homer.''
Count
this as a vote for the win. Thank you, Joe.
Final
Score: Yankees 4, Giants 2. One
hot dog, one frozen lemonade, a slathering of sunscreen, an endless supply of
water, five plate appearances for Barry Bonds without an offical at-bat, 50-some-thousand
satisfied customers.
BOX
SCORE
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