BOSTON – A couple of fans paraded through Fenway Park early last evening with a sign reading “Judas Damon,” the “o” in Damon containing the Yankee logo and a line slashed through it.
Damon, neither an Idiot nor an idiot, anticipated the feeling of betrayal in the crowd and convinced his wife, Michelle, to sit out the firsts Yankee-Red Sox game of 2006. Why make her a target, too, Damon figured?
Damon correctly surmised he would be a moving target, protected somewhat by the ebb and flow of a game. The boos rained upon him only when he batted or fielded a ball. It could have been worse. He could have been a Yankees reliever. “It’s crazy out there,” Tanyon Sturtze said. The right-field visitor’s bullpen at Fenway Park is like something from Beyond Thunderdome.
The enemy relievers are surrounded on two sides by hostile fans. Sturtze held his hands less than a half a foot apart to show how close the angry mob can get.
That pen is a tough place for any opponent, but the Yanks provoke the worst in the mob. Quarters are a favorite projectile, but what is hurled most is enough trash talk to make Gary Payton blush. “It’s all game, every game, non-stop,” said long-time Yankees bullpen catcher Mike Borzello. Fans push up against the low restraining fences and have a way of getting up close and personal.
It is why last night placed the Yankees relief corps into a different phase of the season. The Yankees finished April with the AL’s best bullpen ERA. But that was merely an appetizer to a May when we will learn much more about the group, what with the Red Sox on the schedule for three series and the Mets for one.
And last night, the Yankees pen needed a May Day call in the eighth inning. Aaron Small, Sturtze and, notably, Mike Myers contributed to a four-run frame that broke a tie and lifted the Red Sox to a 7-3 triumph.
Small, on his first day on the active roster and in his third inning of work, walked ninthplace hitter Alex Cora with one out and hit Kevin Youkilis. Sturtze let a potential inningending double-play grounder go through his legs for an RBI single, ending a one-batter outing in frustration.
Myers is another Red Sox who fled Boston for Yankees money, so he was greeted with Damonic boos. Myers is a key instrument in a reconstituted set-up core and in April he was marvelous, allowing no runs in 10 appearances. But David Ortiz is not his teammate tormenting the Yankees any more. Myers was bought to finally give the Yanks a southpaw reliever to cope with lefty might, no one more so than Ortiz. He ran the count full to Big Papi and then watched Ortiz do to him what he so joyously used to watch Ortiz do to other Yankees relievers.
On a night when a strong wind blowing in straight from center thwarted several homers, Ortiz defied Mother Nature and crushed the Yankees’ spirit again. He launched a ball into the Red Sox bullpen.
So in April, the Yankees bullpen ERA was 2.64. For May, it is now 9.00. This is not to knock the Blue Jays or Orioles. But they are junior varsity when it comes to judging how Yankees players will handle all that comes with the uniform. The Red Sox, especially the Red Sox at Fenway Park, are when Yankees are separated by those who can and those who can’t.
If any more were needed to show the seriousness of The Rivalry, then know the Red Sox re-obtained Doug Mirabelli yesterday to again bring his expertise to catching knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, flew him cross country, had a police escort drive him to Fenway from Logan Airport and he arrived with about 10 minutes to spare in full uniform ready to play last night. That speaks to the intensity of Yankees-Red Sox.
So does the aura around the right-field visitor’s bullpen at Fenway, where you are Beyond Thunderdome and every one in a Yankee uniform is Judas Damon.