THIS should have been the homestand the Yankees began distancing themselves from the Red Sox and every other AL team not named the Indians.
In each of the seven games just completed in The Bronx, a Yankee starter worked at least seven innings and the group pitched to a 2.50 ERA. Yet a 4-2 loss yesterday to the Angels left the Yanks just 4-3 on this homestand.
“It’s not good enough,” David Cone said.
No, it is not. Blame it on an inability to step on throats. The Yanks have won the opening two games in four series this month and closed those series 0-5 (it includes a four-game set vs. Texas). And yesterday they were playing a wounded team just waiting for the slaughter. The Angels had lost six in a row, were emotionally and physically battered, and seemed on the verge of having hardly beloved manager Terry Collins fired.
If the Yankees would have pushed, Anaheim would have toppled. “But we didn’t show up at all until late in the game,” Tino Martinez said.
Martinez said this with his voice modulated, but his annoyance clear. His words matter. Cone cites Martinez and Derek Jeter as the leaders of this team. And Martinez made it obvious he did not like what he had just seen. Not in Game 67, and not at too many other moments in a season the Yankees too often appear to be playing from an easy chair.
“We kind of cruised the first four or five innings,” Martinez said. “We did not have enough intensity or fire to want to sweep. … I wouldn’t say it’s a problem. But we have done that a few times this season. We play pretty decent and just as we are about to get hot and going, we just give a game away. We have to get a killer attitude.”
That was supposed to be a Yankee given, an ability to go for the jugular. Last season, the Yanks were 45-5 at home vs. teams with losing records. This season they are 10-5. No realistic person was expecting a 1998 repeat. But where did the methodical destruction of vulnerable foes go?
These Yankees play dispassionately, as if the playoffs are a given. Maybe they are. But the Yanks lead Boston by only one-half game and, just as they have too often failed to blow open games this season, they have failed to blow away the field of playoff wannabes as the halfway mark nears. Allowing teams to hang around could create problems, specifically if the Yanks were to suffer a key injury.
They nearly had one yesterday. Standing on-deck, Paul O’Neill was struck just above his left knee by the sawed-off barrel of Martinez’ bat. O’Neill dropped. But it turned out he had just a bruise. The Yanks were happy not to have a break, the only time they would say that yesterday.
For example, they felt first base ump Mark Johnson missed three calls, two of them critical.
In the second inning, Johnson appeared to incorrectly rule Garret Anderson safe at first after Scott Brosius’ superb backhand and throw. That permitted Matt Luke a two-out at-bat that he translated into an upper-deck homer.
In the eighth with one out and one on, Chuck Knoblauch scorched a ball to right. Replays showed the ball hit the wall just above Reggie Williams’ glove, then bounced off his face and into his glove. Johnson ruled a catch. Williams threw to first for a double play. Rather than second and third and one out, it was inning over.
This miscall in right happened near the infamous Jeffrey Maier location. How eerie that Richie Garcia was umping second and Tony Tarasco was in the park.
It turned out Tarasco would be involved in a bad-break ninth for the Yanks. Batting in place of the injured O’Neill, Tarasco missed an RBI double down the left-field line by an inch. A few minutes later, Chili Davis missed one by perhaps five inches.
“It doesn’t matter how things went last year, this year we are not getting the breaks,” Bernie Williams said.
Still, the Yanks would load the bases with one out and score once against Troy Percival, who previously had not allowed the Yanks a run in 211/3 career innings. Joe Torre would pull out all stops by using the hardly fleet Clay Bellinger and Luis Sojo as pinch-runners for the slower Martinez and Davis. Obviously, Don Zimmer was not available. But Brosius would hit into a game-ending double play.
And what the Yanks should ask is why they were in this dire position anyway. Anaheim starter Tim Belcher came in 4-6 with a 6.95. Had allowed seven runs in his last start. Had a 2-7 lifetime record against the Yanks. And had permitted yesterday’s starting Yankee nine a career .324 average.
The Yanks, though, made him Greg Maddux of 1992-98. Using a cut fastball, Belcher needed four pitches to get out of the fourth inning, six pitches to get out of the fifth, seven pitches to get out of the sixth, eight pitches to get out of the seventh and just 87 pitches total to work eight innings.
“We could have had better at-bats,” Martinez said. “We could have been better prepared. We weren’t as prepared as we could have been. We just had horrible at-bats. We didn’t put pressure on [Belcher] at all.”
Now, the pressure is on the Yankees. To stop talking about breaks. And make their own, the way a team of their talent and pedigree should.