Faithful

back to Fenway Park with a split. That’s the good news.

Let’s see what news they lead with on the sports page tomorrow.

SO: What a horribly convoluted endgame to get Rivera a save and exorcise the Ghost of Billy Mueller. At 8–0 there’s no reason for him to come in, so in the seventh Matsui has two balls go off his glove, Bernie commits the worst error on a ground-ball single I’ve ever seen, and Tek hits a homer, something he hasn’t done in the Stadium in years. In the ninth, down three, I knew we couldn’t go in order so I wasn’t surprised that we got the two guys on to reach Mueller. And wasn’t surprised by the double-play ending. The only consolation is that the powers that be have to give us a win to make up for this train wreck.

You’ll notice, though, that in all the hubbub they made sure Moose kept his win.

SK: Hey, I thought Moose deserved that win. And when the hurly-burly’s done, when the game is lost and won, who gets the blame? Wakefield, for serving up a pair? Timlin, for serving it up to Bernie? Meanwhile, I think Father Curt’s done for the year. Maybe there really is a curse. Looks like the tragickal Mr. Lowe in Game 5 (if there is a Game 5; I presume there will be, and the way the weather looks, it’ll be about October 25th). Meanwhile, who’s your Daddy? Jon Lieber or Pedro Martinez? Or is it…Hideous Hideki? Is he your Daddy?

Go Sox!

Wear that hair!

SO: No blame, just an ugly game. But look at it this way: we’ve already got half of the split (just the wrong half—a-huh a-huh). Let’s see what the tiki gods decree tonite. Pedro’s got to have it, and we’ve got to hit early.

Jon Lieber: Pittsburgh Pirate. Bronson Arroyo: Pittsburgh Pirate.

Yeah, the weather’s going to test us—scattered showers all weekend, and we’re talking three night games, with the temp down around forty-five. Add a little wind and wetness and we’ll be sitting in deck chairs on the SS Fenway.

October 14th/ALCS Game 2

I could continue with the good-news/bad-news thing, there’s plenty of material for it,[72] but with the Sox headed back to Boston down two games to none, I don’t have the heart for it. It’s been thirteen years since a team has climbed out of an 0-2 hole in an LCS, and the Red Sox have never done so.

I blame some of this on numb bad luck. I think most Red Sox fans (certainly this Red Sox fan) were counting on Father Curt to bring the team back from Yankee Stadium with a split. Now it turns out that Schilling’s ankle problem is not a mere tweak, not even a strain, but (oh shit) a probable season- ending injury that will need surgery.

We all know both from gospel music and basic first-year anatomy that the knee-bone connected to the leg-bone and the leg-bone connected to the ankle-bone. The problem here, as I understand it, has to do with the peroneal tendon, where the ankle-bone connected to the foot-bone, can you give me hallelujah. In Schilling’s case, this tendon has come free of its sheath. When pushing off on his right leg during Game 1, Father Curt said he could actually hear the tendon snapping as it rubbed against the bone. Later, when speaking to the press, Sox doc Bill Morgan said additional pitching wouldn’t put Schilling’s leg at risk, and I’m thinking: He can hear that thing snapping like a garter every time he hucks the pill and you say he’s not risking his leg? Jeezis, Doctor Bill, I’m sorta glad you don’t make house calls in my neighborhood.

Well, let it pass. What it boiled down to was a piece of rotten luck (not a curse—I may not be a conventional Christian, but I was raised a Methodist) for the appetizer. The main course was a mostly excellent pitching performance by Pedro Martinez in which his teammates provided exactly two hits (the second by David Ortiz, who was promptly erased on a double play). After the game, Pedro shrugged and said: “If my team doesn’t get the hits, I can’t do nothing.” He said it softly, without rancor. I thought he showed remarkable restraint, considering the fact thathe has been in this position in most of the games he’s pitched this year. Schilling—even in the ALCS game he left trailing 6–0—gets run support. For some reason Martinez does not.

A downcast Johnny Damon echoed the erstwhile Dominican Dominator in a locker-room interview, saying that Red Sox pitching hasn’t been the problem in the ALCS; the problem has been lack of offense. No one is better qualified to speak to this issue than Johnny D, who has gone 0 for 8 in the two games. In my mind it is at this point the crucial difference between the two clubs.

And two points have to be made about the Yankees. First, their much maligned pitching has so far been exceptional. Second, their hitting has been as advertised…or perhaps I should say as expected. The Yanks could almost be renicknamed The American League Hoodoo. National League teams are less impressed by their mystique (witness the success of the Florida Marlins against them last year), but while they remain on their own little patch, the Yankees are awesome in the month of October.

What impresses me most is how balanced their attack is. Of the thirteen runs the Yankees have scored (playing exactly the same lineup both nights), Jeter has two, A-Rod has two, Sheffield has four, Matsui has two, Posada has one, Olerud has one (his two-run bomb last night won the game), and Lofton has one. Only Miguel Cairo and Bernie Williams have failed to score for the Yankees—this is just two games.

It’s true that all but two of the Red Sox players (Cabrera and Damon) have also scored, but Bellhorn, Ortiz, Millar, Varitek and Mueller have each only scored once, and in a single run-through of the batting order (during innings seven and eight of Game 1). Only Trot Nixon, who always seems to step his game up to Yankee levels during the postseason, scored for the Sox in both games.

Meantime, we’re done with Yankee Stadium for a while,[73] and we have the day off to regroup. Compared to those things, there is no bad news.

Yep, Pedro made a quality start (on the forty-fourth anniversary of Maz’s home run). He had some Ramon- like struggles early, but wriggled out of them and settled down nicely. The high-priced, steroid-pumped, former– All-Star, -MVP, -Japanese national hero heart of the Yankee order did as much as our own vaunted Mark Bellhorn, Kevin Millar and Orlando Cabrera, which was nothing. The home run Pedro gave up was to borderline Hall of Famer John Olerud (yet another midseason pickup, not truly a Yankee at all), with his pitch count above 100, to the short part of a shrunken ballpark. We just didn’t hit. Score one run in the AL, you’re going to lose; it doesn’t matter if you’re playing the Yanks or the D-Rays.

So we didn’t get the split. It may be demoralizing, but it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. George paid dearly for the Yankees to have the best home record in all of baseball. But guess who had the second best? We’ll have to win throwing Bronson, Wake and Lowe, but we haven’t taken the easy way all year—and that includes overcoming injuries to key players. We just have to stay hopeful and throw everything we’ve got at them Friday night (weather permitting), win that, battle on Saturday, and even the series. We could even lose a game up at Fenway and win this thing, we’ve just got to hit. Keep the Faith.

SK: Poor Father Curt. Go you Lowe!

SO: Down 2–0 to our evil nemesis, with our best arms gone, I feel like we’re Batman and Robin stuck in that giant snow cone, with the Joker (George) and his dumb-as-mud henchmen in their striped shirts (Yankee fans) laughing their asses off and then leaving us for dead. But you know what happens then…that’s right, Batman goes to his super-utility belt. It’s time for us to pull something out.