The Yankees have won a number of 4-3 and 4-2 games this season (eight to be exact), but only once have they come away victorious from a game in which both teams scored fewer than three runs. They did it for a second time last night, despite Mike Mussina working inefficiently and hitting another fifth-inning pot hole.
Thing started unusually with Scott Podsednik reaching on a bunt single to lead off the game only to be thrown out stealing on the first pitch to Tadahito Iguchi. Derek Jeter then launched El Duque’s second pitch in the bottom of the first to the gap in left only to have Aaron Rowand break directly to where the ball was hit and make a full extension catch on a dead run before flopping onto the warning track. Three pitches later, Rowand caught a Robinson Cano drive on the run on the warning track in the right center gap. Hernandez then walked Sheffield on six pitches and Alex Rodriguez hit one where Rowand couldn’t get to it, half-way back in the left field box seats. 2-0 Yankees.
In the top of the second, a pair of White Sox singles back over the mound put runners on first and second with no outs. Mussina then struck out Jermaine Dye and Rowand gave the Yankees their two outs back by grounding into a double play.
The Yankees added to their lead in the bottom of the second. Tino Martinez reached on a one-out seeing eye single past Iguchi. Tony Womack, who has started the last two games because Bernie Williams is nursing a sore shoulder, followed with an opposite field slap double, just his second extra base hit since May 13 and his first double since April 26 (Womack has seven extra base hits on the season, four of them came in April). Tino moved to third on Womack’s double and scored on a groundout by Jeter for the third Yankee run. That would be all the Yankees would get. It would also be all they would need.
Mussina pitched a 1-2-3 third and got three pop-ups around a one-out Pierzynski single in the fourth. Then came the fifth. Jermaine Dye lead off with a clean single in the hole into left. Rowand followed with a double to the left field gap that both Matsui and Womack misplayed. As Dye came home with the first Chicago run, the relay throw veered toward the White Sox dugout. Rowand them moved to third on a Crede groundout to Cano and scored on a Uribe sac fly to Matsui. After having completely imploded in the fifth inning of his last start, Mussina gave up two-thirds of the Yankee lead in the fifth inning of this one, while laboring his way to 91 pitches, finally striking out Podsednik with a full count to end the inning.
Mussina then retired the first two men in the sixth before giving up a bloop single to Konerko and a ground-rule double to Timo Perez, who, testifying to the poor quality of the Chicago bench, started at designated hitter with Jurassic Carl Everett still nursing a groin injury. Mussina then battled Jermaine Dye over eight pitches, getting ahead with strike one, then 1-2, before Dye worked the count full, fouling off a pair of pitches in the process. Finally, Mussina’s 123rd pitch of the night came in over the middle of the plate, just above the knee, and broke inside and down as Dye swung over it for strike three, ending the White Sox threat and Mussina’s night.
After that, the Yankees’ Big Three did their job in style. Sturtze needed eight pitches (seven strikes) to work a 1-2-3 seventh. Gordon needed just eight more tosses to work a perfect eighth. Finally, Mariano Rivera threw seven strikes, not allowing a ball past the infield and blowing away Rowand with a high heater to nail down the 3-2 win, converting his career-best 30th consecutive save opportunity.
