I love taking my mom to the stadium. A huge (or actually, very tiny) Yankee fan, she gets a big kick out of attending games and cheers louder than I do once she’s there (which should surprise no one who knows her). About a month or so ago, I realized that there was a Yankee home game on Mother’s Day which was part of my season package, and Becky and I agreed that she would take her mom out separately so that I could take my mom to the game.
Then, some time last week, I realized that Kevin Brown would be the scheduled starter. Worse yet, he would be taking the mound against the A’s young ace, Rich Harden. As a result, despite my best intentions, I was not particularly looking forward to yesterday’s game.
Indeed, things got off to an ominous start. Brown worked a deceiving 1-2-3 inning in the first. Mark Kotsay lead off with a hard-hit fly out to left. Jason Kendall followed with a sharp grounder that would have been a typical Brown base hit through the middle had it not been for an excellent back-handed play by Robinson Cano, who just nabbed Jason Kendall at first with an off-balance jump throw of the kind Derek Jeter often makes in the hole at short. Brown then fell behind Eric Chavez 3-0 before recovering to a full count and getting Chavez to fly out to Womack in left.
Rich Harden had a much more convincing 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, ratcheting his fastball up to the upper 90s and finishing the inning by striking out Gary Sheffield swinging.
In the top of the second, Brown was up to his old tricks. Scott Hatteberg cracked Brown’s second pitch for a sharp single to center. Bobby Kielty then walked on four pitches. Brown’s next pitch, to Erubiel Durazo, was another ball. Durazo then singled on a 1-1 count to load the bases with no outs (Hatteberg had started back toward second, as Brown had checked him back before the pitch, and thus was unable to score). Brown’s first pitch to Keith Ginter was a ball about head high to the 5’10” second baseman.
Brown was back in his own personal hell, and the Yankee Stadium crowd was letting him know about it. Then Mel Stottlemyre came to the mound. Said Stottlemyre after the game:
“I told him the way to minimize damage was to stay down throughout the rest of the inning. He said, ‘I just threw a pitch down, and it was a base hit.’ I didn’t think the ball that Durazo hit was down [it was thigh-high, Brown is most effective at or below the knees -CJC], but I didn’t want to argue with him. I told him the only thing I could think of: ‘He’s a low-ball hitter; this next guy is a high-ball hitter.’ I was lying, [but] his stuff is so electric when it’s down. I wasn’t trying to feed him a line of bull; I just thought that was our best chance.”
