KANSAS CITY – The Red Sox have not drawn so close that the Yankees can smell stale clam chowder breath. However, that “B” in the rear-view mirror is becoming easier to see with each passing day.
Is it overreacting to think the Bosox can chase down the Yankees and win the AL East? After watching the Yankees lose three of five against the Angels and Royals – the worst outfits in baseball – the answer is a resounding no!
Joe Torre has couched every conversation about October by saying his club hasn’t won anything yet. And right now the Yankees don’t look like a team that should have its eyes on October. Not after losing a 6-3 decision to the putrid Royals in front of 14,207 at Kauffman Stadium last night.
Roger Clemens is no longer Cy Young and David Cone’s reaction to six days of rest last night was to walk six in five innings and have his record fall to 11-8. Then after the game the Yankees watched Bernie Williams, their All-Star center fielder, leave Kauffman for the team hotel and a plane ride to New York today where his bothersome left shoulder will undergo an MRI.
And, oh yeah, the Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox has been shaved to 5 games. Not since they woke up Aug. 4 leading the Blue Jays by five lengths has the Yankees’ bulge been under six games. When Jim Leyritz joined the Yankees in late July, he told his wife a 7-game lead never felt as comfortable as the one the Yankees held over the Red Sox.
With 24 games remaining and a 5-game lead, the Yankees don’t need to panic and chances are they will survive because the Red Sox are a very flawed bunch fortunate to grab the wild-card entry into October.
However, there is no denying the Yankees look ill. On the mound and at the plate where they have been beaten by slop-throwing lefties on consecutive nights.
The Angels Jarrod Washburn did it to them Monday in Anaheim and Jose Rosado (8-13) got them last night when 12 of the Yankees’ 13 hits were singles and 14 men were left on base.
“We have to get there,” Cone said. “We are still in good shape but it’s been a tough road trip and tough travel [Monday night]. It would be nice to get a win [tonight] and get back home.”
Bleary-eyed due to arriving at their hotel at 5:30 yesterday morning when their sojourn from Anaheim ran into several delays, the Yankees looked lethargic in the early going.
Asked if the late arrival bothered him, Cone didn’t bat a bloodshot eye.
“I felt great, I felt real good, it’s not the first time in my career I have been out until five in the morning,” Cone quipped. “I felt good tonight, I probably felt a little too good because I tried to do a little too much with the stuff that I had.”
Cone walked two and balked a run home in the first, gave up an RBI single to Jermaine Dye in the third and a run-scoring double to Dye in the fifth that gave the Royals a 3-1 cushion. Derek Jeter’s two-out single scored Shane Spencer with the Yankees’ first run in the top of the fifth and extended Jeter’s hit streak to a dozen games.
Two gift runs off Ramiro Mendoza in the sixth when Tino Martinez allowed a Carlos Beltran ground ball to go between his legs, hiked the Royals’ advantage to 5-1 and they added another run in the eighth off Jason Grimsley.
The last three runs forced the Yankees to climb a steep mountain in the ninth when they scored twice but watched closer Jeff Montgomery retire pinch-hitters Paul O’Neill and Ricky Ledee on grounders to the right side for the final outs.
Naturally, Torre wasn’t making excuses.
“We may have been a little tired but you can’t worry about that because you are going to have games where that is going to happen and you are going to have to go out there and push it,” Torre said. “I thought we were lacking a hit here and a hit there.”