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The Yankees pulled out a huge win yesterday in Boston, but Game Three of the ALCS is likely to be remembered for the eruption of machismo and mishegoss more than the bofo pitching duel between two of the greatest pitchers of all time. After the Sox jumped on the Rocket in the first inning (Manny Ramirez had a two run single), Pedro Martinez was not able to hold the lead. He allowed an RBI single to Karim Garcia and then a solo homer to Derek Jeter. In the fourth inning, the Yankees added another run, via a grounds rule double by Hideki Matsui, which put runners on second and third with nobody out.

Garcia came to bat and Martinez buzzed one behind the left-handed hitter, nicking him on the left shoulder blade. With that, Martinez lit the fuse for what would unravel to be an unsavory afternoon. Did Pedro hit Garcia on purpose? There is no doubt in my mind. With nobody out, an open base, and a right-handed hitter on deck, it made sense. Martinez has impeccable control; even if he did lose control of a pitch, it is difficult to believe that he would go behind the hitterís head.

The jawing began. Both benches were warned which brought Joe Torre out to riff, because that supposedly took the inside pitch away from his man, Clemens. Alfonso Soriano then hit into a double play, which scored another run. Garcia took out second baseman Todd Walker with a late slide, and then had some words for Walker and well as Martinez as he trotted off the field.

Pedro screamed back and then Jorge Posada, the Yankees catcher, got into it with Martinez as well. Don Zimmer was hollering too. This was when Pedro started pointing at his head, yelling at the Yankees bench. Did he mean to say, “Iím going to hit you in the head next time,” or “Use your head?” No matter, clearly Martinez was not using his head.

Manny Ramirez led off the bottom of the fourth, and with two strikes, Roger Clemens threw a pitch high in the zone, but over the plate. (ESPN later showed a pitch-by-pitch replay of the at-bat and Harold Reynolds noticed that Manny was bailing out on each pitch, waiting to get buzzed.) Ramirez lost his composure and started walking toward the mound, screaming at Clemens. The home plate umpire attempted to restrain Ramirez, who shoved him off. The benches cleared with much of the usual talking, and then Don Zimmer took it upon himself to charge Pedro Martinez.

As the 72-year old bench coach approached Martinez, he raised his left arm, as if he were going to throw a punch. It never got that far. Martinez, bracing himself, caught Zimmer by the head, with two hands, as if a basketball had been passed to him. He then tossed Zimmer to the ground, like he was making a behind the back bounce pass, and Zimmer fell flat on his face.

It was an absurd moment that would have been amusing if it werenít so scary. My girlfriend Emily was horrified, and she could barely calm down for the rest of the game (she happens to adore Zim). Truthfully, I could barely believe what was happening.

As far as assigning blame, Zimmer was nuts to charge Martinez, but then again, Zimmer is nuts. I don’t mean to take him off the hook, we all know he’s a crazy old man. Martinez acted in self-defense, but could he have found a more tactful way to avoid Popeyeís bum rush? Thatís debatable, but I think so. As Tom Boswell noted, Zimmer charged Pedro at exactly 1 mph. No matter, it was a no-win situation for Martinez. Self-defense or not, Martinez looked like a fool, which was fitting seeing how he started the melee in the first place.

Will Carroll was more pointed in his reaction:

I’m not sure that Pedro Martinez’s throwdown on Don Zimmer is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in baseball, but it’s top ten. Maybe Pedro shouldn’t have been run, but he should be fined and significantly more than Robert Fick was for his sickening play in the NLDS. They had to stop beer sales in Fenway, so I’d like to see Pedro fined the equivalent of whatever the Red Sox lost in the deal. Then MLB should fine Pedro at least 50k. Even the MLBPA won’t argue this one.

Better, I’d like to see the Sox “cowboy up” and throw a blanket party. Being the best pitcher in the game shouldn’t give you a free pass on being an asshole.

Order was restored, Ramirez waved at the next pitch thrown by Clemens, and there wasnít another incident until the ninth inning when a member of the Red Sox grounds crew got into a fight in the Yankees bullpen with reliever Jeff Nelson and outfielder Karim Garcia (thereís that man again). Garcia had to leave the game with a bloodied hand, and after the game accusations were flying back and forth as to who exactly started the fight.

Oh yeah, the Yankees held on for the win as the Home Nine lost their poise.

There were several ironies that jumped out at me regarding the festivities:

1. After Martinez hit Garcia, he didnít allow a base runner for the rest of the afternoon. He found his control all right, as well as his fastball–

The Yankees and Red Sox added another juicy chapter to their long rivalry Saturday in a game where emotions and theatrics overshadowed a fine—and final?—performance at Fenway for Roger Clemens, not to mention another masterly outing from Mariano Rivera. The Yanks won 4-3, and have a golden opportunity to take charge of the serious on Sunday night when David Wells faces off against John Burkett. The Red Sox, who have made a speciality of rebounding from tough defeats all season long, need to bounce back once again.

Here are David Pinto’s posts on the game. I’ve finally calmed down myself—I can’t recall being so fired up during a game—, the medication has kicked in, and I will write a full game summary tomorrow afternoon. It might as well be Christmas in October for the newspapers in Boston and New York, huh? I can’t wait to read all the cheese piled on this game tomorrow, because this one is going down as one of the all-time classics between Boston and New York.

What did you think about it? Still breathing?

I ran into a lot of Yankee fans yesterday who suddenly don’t think much of Mike Mussina. “He’s not a big game pitcher,” was what they all said. What have you done for me lately is what they mean, suddenly forgetting the 1-0 victory over the A’s in Game Three of the 2001 ALCS, not to mention how brilliantly he pitched for the O’s in the 1997 post season. Label-mate, Will Carroll had a nice post about Mussina and the state of pitching today on his site. Stop by and give it a gander…

I’ll tell you what, come Game 6 on Monday, I’m going to be damn happy to have Mussina going for the Bombers once again.

Tom Boswell paints Boston pitcher Derek Lowe as an unstable flake in his latest column:

Asked at a postgame news conference about the bizarre disparity between his home (11-2, 3.21 ERA) and road (6-5, 6.11 ERA) records this year, Lowe did something you almost never see. He pretended he had heard some entirely different, imaginary question — presumably that pitch he threw to Nick Johnson on a two-run homer — and gave a lengthy answer about his misbegotten “cutter,” never mentioning his reputation as the Anti-Road Warrior.

Lowe is a man of many phobias. After this game, he said that his arm is sorer than it’s been all year, presumably because he pitched three times, twice in relief, in the Oakland series. With Lowe, you worry about any idea that manages to stick in his brain, because he tends to fixate on it. Two years ago, the criticism that comes with being a closer bothered him so much that the Red Sox made him a starter even though he once had a 42-save season in relief. Because he has the highest ground-ball to fly-ball ratio in baseball (3.62) he loathes pitching on artificial turf where bouncing balls become hits. And, finally, there’s that career-long history of road disasters — with the brilliant exception being his thrilling ninth-inning save in Sunday’s Game 5 in Oakland.

My former employers, Joel and Ethan Coen, have a new movie out today. The New York papers gave “Intolerable Cruelty,” a screwball comedy featuring George Clooney and Cathering Zeta-Jones, glowing notices. I’ve seen the ads for the movies, and it hasn’t really looked too great from what I can tell. They sure aren’t billing it as a Coen Brother film, just like Woody Allen’s latest wasn’t marketed as a Woody Allen movie. But looks can be deceiving, as Times film critic Elvis Mitchell confirmed in his review:

Between a lethargic trailer propped up by “Gimme Some Lovin’ ” and the mainstream-sentimentalist producer Brian (“A Beautiful Mind”) Grazer’s name on the credits, there’s plenty of reason for an involuntary recoil toward the Coen Brothers’ fearsomely titled new movie, “Intolerable Cruelty.” But the film is not shudder-worthy. Instead, it’s something not seen in movie theaters for a long time: an intelligent, modern screwball comedy, a minor classic on the order of competent, fast-talking curve balls about deception and greed like Mitchell Leisen’s “Easy Living” and Billy Wilder’s “Major and the Minor.”

The last time the boys tried to make a commerical film—“The Hudsucker Proxy”—it bombed. Ethan used to say that maybe 1,000 people actually paid to see it in the theater. So what did they do next? They were going to make “The Big Lebowski”—the movie I eventually worked on–but John Goodman was unavailable at the time. So they went ahead and made a low-budget crime caper about sad sack criminals in North Dakata.

I remember one of their old friends telling me that he emplored the guys not to make “Fargo.” “You guys just had a major flop and now you are going to make a movie that exactly twelve people are going to want to see.” Of course, “Fargo” turned out to be a fluke smash, and since then, I think Joel and Ethan make whatever movie they can get financed (they usually have at least a half a dozen scripts which they’ve penned, to choose from).

I hope the new one is good. The boys are currently in L.A. filming a remake of the Alec Guiness comedy “The Ladykillers,” which stars Tom Hanks.

Even Steven

Andy Pettitte was all over the place to start Game Two of the American League Championship Serious. He left fastballs and breaking pitches up in the zone and the Red Sox smacked six hits off of the Yankee lefty in the first two innings. But Boston only managed to score one run, and before you knew it, Pettitte had calmed himself down.

Nick Johnson was 1 for his last 33 when he smashed a two-run homer off Derek Lowe in the bottom of the second. The Yankees would go on to squander several opportunities themselves, but Bernie Williams and Hideki Matsui added RBI singles, and in the seventh inning, Jorge Posada had a 2 run double that put the game away.

Jose Contreras got four outs and looked sharp for the second straight night. Mariano Rivera allowed a harmless two-out single to pinch-hitter Todd Walker, and is looking better than he has all season. Early in the year, Mariano was tapping his left foot several times before he delivered a pitch. It reminded me of a cat stepping on a ledge and tentatively trying to keep its balance. ESPN ran a segment on this a couple of days ago, and said that Rivera had been having problems with his left foot. He isn’t tapping any longer—the foot must be fine—and his pitches appear to have even more zip than ever. (It’s funny, but for all the alarmist talk about Rivera this season, the Yankees great closer posted the lowest ERA of his career.)

There was some minor drama late, as Contreras straightened David Ortiz up with a Nuke LaLooshe fastball in the eighth. Bronson Arroyo returned the sentiment when he plunked ‘Lil Sori in the back in the bottom of the inning.

Unable to contain themselves, the Yankee Stadium crowd chanted “We want Pedro,” at the end of the game. Be careful what you wish for: the Yanks are going to get him. (Surely, Red Sox fans remember Game Three of the 1999 ALCS: it was the one raucous highlight of that series for them.) Martinez, the ultimate villain, was smiling in the dugout. (Cue cliffhanger music.) Pedro is an archtype—the baddy who ties the girl to the train track. He will pitch the pivotal Game Three against another archtype bad guy—Rocket Clemens, the 400 lb gorilla.

Game Three is essential for Boston; Game Four (Hello, John Burkett) is crucial for the Yanks. Should be a thrilling weekend.

The Red Sox did everything better than the Yanks last night and took Game One of the ALCS, 5-2. It was unseasonably warm in the Bronx, and the moon was just about full. Tim Wakefield was excellent limiting the Yankees to two hits, and a couple of runs, and the Boston bullpen mopped up from there. On the other hand, Mike Mussina was not sharp, and he paid for it. After Moose walked two batters in the second inning, I had a feeling it was going to be a rough night. He was constantly behind in the count and had thrown 39 pitches through the second.

Manny Ramirez reached first to lead off the fourth. He hit a tapper to the right side, which deflected of Mussina’s glove for a single; it is a play that Moose normally makes. After falling behind David Ortiz—who had been 0-20 lifetime against Mussina—Moose served up a fastball on the fat part of the plate, and Boston’s Dominican Cookie Monster crushed it into the upper deck.

Todd Walker hit a dinger off the foul poul in the following inning, and the Sox led, 3-0. Initially called foul, the umpires reversed the call, and made the correct decision. A fan tried to catch the ball, missed it, and the ball hit the pole anyway. Bernie Williams made a fine running catch moving toward death valley on the very next play, robbing Bill Mueller of an extra base hit, but Manny popped a homer just over the right field fence to put Boston ahead, 4-0. (Ramirez, Washington Heights’ adopted son, collected two more hits, all four going to right field.)

Derek Jeter’s poor range was on display as singles by Doug Mirabelli and Kevin Millar inexplicably scooted under his glove (Millar’s scored a run). Jeter was almost clipped by an eagle in the pre-game ceremonies, and the night didn’t get any better from there. The Yankee bullpen was decent. Jose Contreras struck out the side in the ninth inning, an encouraging sign for sure.

In all, it was the Red Sox night. The Yankees were shut down by Wakefield, and when they did sting the ball, it was directly at a Boston fielder. The Yanks mounted a rally in the seventh. After consectutive walks chased the knuckleballer from the game, Jorge Posada—who had two of the Bombers three hits—lined a double into center. Jason Giambi, the lead runner, scored easily, but Gabe Kapler—Johnny Damon’s replacement in center—cut the ball off nicely and prevented Bernie Williams from scoring as well. (Williams would come home on Hideki Matsui’s sac fly, but that was all the soup the Yanks were going to get.)

Damon was on the bench for Boston, but he looked ginger and more than a bit spacey. He is expected to play this weekend, and for one night at least, was not missed.

As frustrating as the game was to watch as a Yankees fan, I was encouraged by the optimism displayed by the Yankee fans at the Stadium during the late innings. Unfazed by trailing, or even losing the game, Yankee fans weren’t panicking.

There is still a long way to go, as Dan Shaughnessy, one of Boston’s most cynical columnist notes this morning. Andy Pettitte gets the ball in another huge game tonight. But if Derek Lowe manages to out-pitch Andy, the Yankees will be in the unenviable position of having to face Prince Pedro down 0-2, with the next three games coming in Boston.

Many baseball writers were hot for the Sox as the post season started, but most of them actually picked the Yanks in this serious. Considering how these playoffs have played out so far, nothing is a sure bet now.

The Boston Globe has articles today written by Bill Lee, and Jim Bouton regarding the Yankees-Sox serious. Seriously.

“I’ll tell you one thing, if you want to give me $50 million more, I’ll promise you we won’t blow the 2-0 lead.”

Billy Beane

Now that the dust is starting to settle over yet another unfortunate playoff performance by the Oakland A’s, general manager Billy Beane is taking some heat. Sports Illustrated’s chief baseball writer, Tom Verducci opines:

There are real reasons why the Athletics don’t get it done in October, and they have nothing to do with shooting craps. This team doesn’t catch the ball well enough, doesn’t exceed at situational hitting and, as one Oakland source put it, “We’re the worst baserunning team in the league.” There is also the matter of their leadership vacuum.

…Nobody is taking anything away from how Oakland, with a small payroll, has fought its way into the playoffs four years running. It’s an amazing achievement. But the Athletics — and not some cosmic Ouiji board — must bear responsibility for their poor execution in the postseason, when home runs and walks are harder to come by and runs are more precious. The A’s ineptness does have something to do with the kinds of players they acquire and the construction of the team.

…Oakland is in many ways a model organization for getting the most bang for its buck and extending its window for success, a very tough task for a small-revenue team. Its management has been properly commended for thinking outside the traditional baseball establishment. But 0-9 in clinchers is no accident. The Athletics have earned their reputation as a team that plays sloppy baseball when it counts most.

Rob Neyer adds:

If you want to blame anything, blame brains. Blame brains for what happened in Game 3. It was Eric Byrnes’ brain that didn’t tell him to go back and touch home plate in the sixth, and it was Miguel Tejada’s brain that didn’t tell him to continue plateward after he’d been interfered with in the same inning. But were these brain problems symptomatic? Well, Byrnes is considered one of the more intense players in the league, and just a year ago Tejada was considered by many the most valuable player in the league.

And yet, an inch here or there and we wouldn’t be having this discussion because the A’s would have won.

Steve Lombardi, who runs the NetShrine discussion forum, has another explanation: the A’s have been cursed ever since Mark McGwire was shipped out of town. (Thanks to Lee Sinins for the link.)

All of the New York and Boston papers have extensive previews of the Yankee-Red Sox serious today. Predictions, puff pieces: all you can eat. Ugh. Quite frankly, they are too many articles to link, and none of them will tell you anything you don’t already know. If you are interested, I suggest you head over to Baseball Newsstand and check out the hype for yourself.

(For Red Sox fans who want to add a little more fuel to their hatred of the Yankees, peep Allen Barra’s latest piece for Slate.)

The senior member of the Red Sox, knuckleballer Tim Wakefield faces Mike Mussina tonight at the Stadium. Like most everybody who follows the Yanks and Sox, I can’t wait. The anticipation is driving me mad.

If tonight’s game is anything like the Cubs-Marlins game yesterday–and way to go Mike Lowell)—I may need to get a perscription, pronto.

Jack Curry had a good article on the Yankees’ Captain Clutch, Derek Jeter yesterday in The Times. Jeter may not be as great as Nomar Garciaparra or Alex Rodriguez, but he is one of the best big game performers of his generation:

“Jeter is the most relaxed person that I’ve seen in the postseason,” Reggie Jackson, the Hall of Famer, said in a telephone interview. “I would relate him to the way Ron Guidry approached it or Catfish Hunter or Mariano Rivera. There’s a relaxed way to go about playing. At the same time, there’s tension. You have to be mentally and physically alert. Jeter is always ready.”

Curry continues:

When the calendar turns to October, Jeter embraces the enhanced atmosphere and the brighter spotlight. Jeter’s 107 postseason hits are a major league record. Jackson, who has advised Jeter about the power of believing – that you are supposed to succeed in pressure situations because you have done it before – said Jeter thrives because he has the talent and because he has the mental makeup to remain placid in precarious spots.

“The postseason is not just another game so you’re not going to play it the same way,” Jackson said. “You’re going to be nervous. There are going to be butterflies. But Jeter understands how to control the butterflies by getting them in the right formation. He does that very well.”

Once again, I am reminded of a bit that Tom Boswell once wrote:

Baseball has a name for the player who, in the eyes of his peers, is well attuned to the demands of his discipline; he is called “a gamer.” The gamer does not drool, or pant, before the cry of “Play ball.” Quite the opposite. He is the player, like George Brett or Pete Rose, who is neither too intense, nor too lax, neither lulled into carelessness in a dull August doubleheader nor wired too tight in an October play-off game. The gamer may scream and curse when his mates show the first hints of laziness, but he makes jokes and laugs naturally in the seventh game of the Series.

Above all, this Ideal which exists only in abstraction seems to have an internal tuning fork which gives him perfect emotional pitch. Strike that fork before each game, and the player vibrates with just the proper energy and spark, just the right relaxation and steadiness, which the game has always required. In other words, baseball’s highest value–at least during those hours on the field–is the ability to achieve a blend of intensity and underlying serenity which, in daily life, we might call mental health.

My brother has always said that the reason Jeter is a great player has more to do with good parenting than anything else. He may not be the best talent, but he is mentally well-adjusted. Jeter’s personality is perfected tuned to what he’s doing; he’s confident without being brash, secure without being flashy. He is a true leader.

“When you look across the room and you see No. 2 on your team, you know he’s going to be ready,” Jackson said. “You know he’s going to be calm. Everyone sees that and it makes them calm, too. The leader of all of this is Jeter. I put him on a high level as a postseason player.”

I was thumbing through one of Tom Boswell’s collections last night (“Why Time Begins on Opening Day”) after the Sox-A’s game, and came across a piece about that featured some telling thoughts on George Steinbrenner. The article, “Trader Jack, Whitey the Rat,” was written 20 years ago, but much of what Boswell wrote, still applies today:

As resident dissident Graig Nettles, who wore a “Fido” T-shirt because he was always in the owner’s doghouse, once said, “Some teams are under the gun. We’re under the thumb.”

Thus Steinbrenner has proved himself to be the perfect Yankee owner. The man and his team have become, over the years, a standing ethical question about means and ends, even about American values and capitalist morality. The point that’s often missed is that the Yankees have been at the heart of debates since our grandfathers’ times. It’s a baseball fan’s birthright to maintain a lifelong ambivalence toward the Yankees, respecting their great players while condemning an ownership that pays cash for its Ruths and Jacksons, brazenly buys players for every stretch drive and regularly cashiers lovable old managers like Stengel and Lemon [and Joe Torre].

Contrary to the highbrow consensus, the Yankees’ corporate bad manners and their poised athletic talent, their repetitious controversies and their ostentatious victories and, above all, their bickering, slapstick collapses, aren’t “bad for baseball” but in fact may be the most compelling public theater the game offers.

…Also, Steinbrenner is the most transparent sort of paper villain. Everybody sees through him, so nobody really fears or truly hates him…In one sense, Steinbrenner’s place in baseball history is clear. His purpose was to devalue victory, prove its essential emptiness as an end in itself.

But Boswell also appreciated Steinbrenner’s significance as the first owner to embrace free agency:

Steinbrenner alone recognized that the moment in baseball history had come when an unregenerate Social Darwinist might flourish—that is, if his team played in New York, if his team won, if he got huge local TY contracts and big crowds, and if he cashed in on the bonanza of postseason play. Steinbrenner used all of his club’s financial power to take advantage of a marketplace biased as never before toward wealthy franchises.

Steinbrenner saw the chance, at least in theory, to build an almost defeat-proof organization–a leakproof ship with a double hull. The Yanks not only amassed frontline stars, but collected more second-line stars than they could ever use. This compulsive duplication of talent was a system. George III understood that players got hurt, got old, got lazy or went sour. The solution was to have so many that only a catastrophe could keep you from winning, or at least being so close to the top that you remained where the stay-ahead cash was. That’s the insurance policy nobody ever thought of—or was willing to pay the premiums on. While other clubs built one team, then trusted to luck, the Yanks assembled a team-and-a-half and thus bought their luck.

George’s luck ran out in the ’80s, especially toward the end of the decade, and of course it hit rock bottom in the early ’90s when he was kicked out of the game for the second time in his career. But much of what Boswell wrote in 1983 still holds true, dont’ you think?

He doesn’t mention what a sore winner, and a lousy loser George is. But if the Sox take a couple of games from the Yanks, we’ll see and hear ol’ George in fine form. And if the Yanks manage to get past Boston, George is likely to respond as if he had just watched the last act of “Camillie.”

The Oakland A’s trailed the Red Sox by one run in the bottom of the ninth last night. The first two batters reached base on walks, and then the A’s sacrificed—?!?!—the runners over. Jermaine Dye was then pinch-hit for—?!?!?!—and the last three hitters were unable to put the ball in play, drawing a walk and two strike outs. The Red Sox bullpen, which has been much maligned all season, came through when they needed to.

The never-say-die Red Sox completed a dramatic comeback to advance to the ALCS, and will face the Yankees tomorrow night in the Bronx. Pedro Martinez got the win, and Derek Lowe saved the day, recording the last two outs in the ninth. Barry Zito surrendered a three-run blast to Manny Ramirez–who would have made Alfonso Soriano proud hot dogging it around the bases–and that proved to be the difference.

One thing for sure: It’s going to be a long, cold winter in the Bay. (Red Sox fans can relate.)

The ninth inning surely took years off the lives of Red Sox fans. The Fox network kept cutting back to a live feed at a Boston bar, and by the middle of the inning, the place was suddenly still, waiting for something to go wrong. Fox also showed Red Sox fans in the crowd in Oakland, and cross-cut between shots of the Sox and A’s benches. Seeing virtually everyone in the park reduced to a nervous wreck was a memorable sight, for sure. Oh, the tension.

But this year’s Red Sox have nine lives, and plenty of chutzpah to go with it. The A’s opened the door for them, and they slipped through it, and got what they’ve wanted all year: a shot at the Yankees to get to the World Serious.

This may be as good as it gets for baseball, and for one of its great rivalries—at least as far as the Sox are concerned—but it’s not going to do wonders for my mental health. And shit, I’m a relatively well-adjusted guy; think what it’s going to do for the rest of the fanatics in Boston and New York.

Starting today, the fireworks will start. The Yankees’ paper lion owner, G.M. Puff’n’stuff, has already issued his battle hymm, and I’m sure the higher ups in the Boston organization will start to tweak him, and the ever-sensitive Yankee fans shortly. When Johnny Damon wakes up from the terrible collision he suffered last night, I’m sure he’ll start running his mouth too. Todd Walker, Pedro Martinez and Kevin Millar: we’re ready for your close ups.

It is likely that Tim Wakefield will get the ball in Game One for Boston. He’ll face Mike Mussina. I would expect that Derek Lowe would go in Game Two against Andy Pettitte. Then, Pedro vs. Rocket in Boston on Saturday, followed by Boomer vs. Burkett or Suppan on Sunday.

The pitching match-ups clearly favor New York. If the Yankees starters do their jobs, the Bombers should advance. But Boston’s offense is a powder keg waiting to be lit. It is unlikely that they will go out like the impatient Twins, and therefore, one of the Yankees’ major weakness’—their middle relief—will have to perform. The Sox pen performed admirably against Oakland, while the Yankees’ pen rested. Who will play a significant role: Jeff Nelson, or Jose Contreras?

On the other hand, the Yankees offense is starting to catch fire too, and they will put more pressure on Boston’s bullpen. Both teams have shakey defense, and both teams know each other inside and out. I expect for us to be in for a week and a half of gut-wrenching games, sleepless nights, and emergency trips to the shrink.

Tim Hudson had to leave yesterday’s game after one inning of work. The reason? Hudson strained his left oblique muscle. According to the
San Francisco Gate, Hudson may have injured himself in a brawl the night before at a Boston bar:

According to a security guard and a member of the bar staff, Hudson got into a skirmish with a Red Sox fan and threw several punches, including one that clipped a bartender.

“It was a big melee. He was throwing haymakers,” said the security guard,

who spoke on the condition his name not be used.

“Honest to God, he’s 160 pounds and it took eight big guys to hold him back,” the staff member said of Hudson. “It was five minutes of mayhem.”

Believe it or not…

I wonder how many fortunate breaks the Red Sox have enjoyed in their storied history? We sure know about the ones that have gone against them. But if Pedro Martinez can lead the Sox to victory tonight, the shoddy umpiring in Game 3 will stand as one of the best presents Sox fans have ever had. (Aside: if there was campus rioting in Boston after just one victory, will the town go down in flames if they ever win it all?) Mike C has written an extensive piece on the obstruction rule, and it’s his opinion that the A’s were robbed, regardless of their own stupidity. Mike’s analysis is thorough and in depth, as it always is.

Take a peek, don’t sleep.

Check out the following blogs for the latest playoff news:

Futility Infielder
Universal Baseball Blog, Inc.
Aaron Gleeman
Seth Speaks
Twins Geek
The Cub Reporter
Will Carroll’s Weblog
Bambino’s Curse
Elephants in Oakland
Replacement Level Yankees Blog
Clifford’s Big Red Blog
Baseball Musings

Yankees 8, Twins 1

David Wells didn’t want yesterday to be his last start as a Yankee, and his offense made it easy for him. The Yankees busted out in the fourth inning at the Metrodome, scoring six runs, chasing Johan Santana from the game, and effectively ending the Twins season. Nick Johnson ended an 0-27 slump with a clutch, two-out double; Giambi, Bernie—who had a nice offensive series–and Matsui also had doubles, and Alfonso Soriano added a 2 run single.

That was all Boomer would need, and he pitched into the eighth, allowing just one run. Derek Jeter, who was robbed of a home run by Shannon Stewart in the sixth inning, put the cherry on top of the victory, with a solo homer off of Easy Eddie G in the ninth.

This was far and away, the least dramatic and exciting game of the weekend, and that was just fine as far as I’m concerned. (I was able to digest and fall asleep peacefully last night.) The Yankees wash the sour taste of last year’s playoff defeat out of their mouths, and come home, a confident bunch, to play for the pennant.

Yipee.

In the late game, Kerry Wood dominated the Braves once again, and the Cubbies won their first playoff serious in 95 years. Chicago will play the Marlins for the pennant. Now, who would have guessed? Fantastic. Congrats to Sam Plummer, Will Carroll, Ruz, and all the Cub fans out there. Enjoy it.

The A’s blew another golden opportunity to polish off the Red Sox yesterday, but Boston’s bats did the job against Oakland’s bullpen, scoring two runs in the eighth inning and forcing a Game 5 tonight in the Bay Area. It was the eighth time in four years that Oakland has failed to clinch a playoff series.

The A’s had the bases loaded in both the first and second innings against John Burkett and came away with one run. They eventually caught up to him and held a 4-2 lead in the middle innings. But the Sox fought back. Todd Walker hit another homer, and David Ortiz came through with the game winning hit–his first of the series. Manny Ramirez, who spent more time predicting home runs than hitting them, scored the go-ahead run.

It was a gorgeous day in Boston. The clouds were out early, but the sun was brilliant late in the game, creating an array of memorable pictures. At one point, every shot of the field looked like it was composed by Orson Welles. When the Sox were still behind in the eighth, I noticed smiling faces in the first couple of rows behind the plate. Later, during Manny or Ortiz’s at bat—I can’t remember which—half of the fans behind home plate were standing, cheering, while the other half remained seated.

It illustrated the split in Red Sox Nation: the cautious, suspertitious half, and the wild, cowboy-up half. Many Sox fans must have been waiting for the bottom to drop out, but it never happened. Oakland was too busy living out its own version of The Curse. Regardless of what happens now, Fenway Park enjoyed a great day.

I won’t lie. The A’s performance made me sick. There is nothing I enjoy more than watching the Sox lose in Boston, yet at the same time, I’m not surprised by what transpired. Not so much from Oakland’s pernt of view, but from Boston’s. This Sox team has refused to be buried all season. The bigger the hole they’ve been in, the stronger they come back. Make no mistake, Oakland’s ineptitude has allowed Boston back into the serious, but Boston took advantage of the opportunity, and here they are, on the verge of moving on. It doesn’t matter if they are winning ugly; like Al Davis said, “Just win, baby.”

Tonight gives Game 5 in Oakland. Pedro Martinez, the man Sox fans want most in a one-game-take-all scenerio, will face last year’s Cy Young winner, Barry Zito. Zito will pitch on three days rest for the first time in his career; Martinez goes on four days rest. The Sox have the momentum, they are rolling, and I fully expect them to win tonight, and then roll back east to face the Bombers on Wednesday.

Having said that, I’ll be pulling for Zito and the A’s.

For more on Saturday’s wild game, check out Joe Sheehan’s free column over at Baseball Prospectus. Sheehan is one of the best baseball commentators going, so check it out.

It’s just about 11:30 on Saturday night, and I’ve been watching baseball since 1:00 this afternoon. I can’t remember a better day for the game in recent memory. It started yesterday evening when I returned home to catch the second half of the Marlins-Giants game. Pudge Rodriguez had one of those kind of superstar performances that will stay with him—and us—for a long time. He was virtually everywhere, making things happen, all day long: hitting an early home run, throwing a runner out a third, crashing into the second baseman to break up a double play, and eventually smacking the game-winning hit into right field.

Florida upset the Giants, and Jose Cruz Jr. opened the door for heartbreak. Later on, Mark Prior and Greg Maddux lived up to advanced billing. Prior was masterful, pitching a complete game two-hitter, and Maddux was very good, allowing 2 runs, but only for six innings. The Cubs won, 3-1.

The Marlins and Giants played another spirted game today, while the Yankess took on the Twins. I missed most of the National League affair, but saw the crucial highlights, and then the finale. And what a dramatic ending it was! Pudge Rodriguez was involved again, as he held onto a throw from Jeff Conine to tag JT Snow out to end the game. The Giants season ended with a plate at the plate: believe it. Snow, the tying run, crashed into Rodriguez, but it was in vain. Earlier, Rodriguez had scored a run by knocking the ball out of the San Francisco catcher’s glove, and now with the game on the line, Pudge held onto the ball, and was immediately tackled by his own pitcher Ugie Urbina as the Marlins upset San Francisco.

It is a dark day for the Giants and their fans. After losing the World Serious last year, this one now has to smart all the more.

Meanwhile, Roger Clemens made what could be the final start of his career in America’s heartland this afternoon and he made the most of it, allowing one run over seven innings. (And no matter what happens to the Yankees in the coming days, Boss George assures us that Joe Torre will return in 2004. Heard that one before?…) Hideki Matsui hit a two-run dinger early in the game, and Bernie Williams added an RBI single later on.

That was all the Yankees would need. Mariano Rivera came on in the eighth inning for the second straight game, and for the second straight game he retired all six batters that he faced, bringing Yankee fans back to the glory years of the late 1990s. Mariano has faced twelve Twin batters in two games and retired them all in order. Mmmm.

Final: Yankees 3, Twins 1.

The Twins got good pitching from their bullpen again, and the Yankee bats were unable to get rolling, but this game was all about Rocket and Rivera, who overpowered the Twins offense. The Bombers will send Boomer Wells to the mound tomorrow afternoon against Johan Santana.

Next up, the Cubs and Braves faced off again in Chicago. It was a brilliant, sunny day, and Chipper Jones blasted two homers for the Braves, who held on for a 6-4 win. Not for nothing, but I called Chipper’s second homer. And as nuts as this sounds, I was rooting for the Braves to win. It’s not that I dislike the Cubs. If they win, I’d be more than pleased, but there is something in me that is pulling for Atlanta. No matter how good they are in the regular season, people tend to dismiss them. More to to point, if Atlanta forced a Game 5, the Yankees would play on Sunday at 4 pm and not 7:30. I wanted to watch the Bombers at 4, so I got my wish.

John Smoltz, who looked hurt in the ninth inning, gutted out the save, getting Sammy Sosa to fly out deep to center to end the game. It was a classic match up of star power. If Sammy had hit the ball six feet further, the game would have been tied. When it left the bat, I got goosebumps for a flash. Just like I did when Mike Piazza made the last out of the 2000 World Serious. It looked good off the bat. The crowd surged and then exhauled.

What did they really expect? They are Cubs fans, after all. Did they think their boys were going to make it easy on them?
Lastly, the Oakland A’s pissed away a golden opportunity to put away the Red Sox for good. The game was another tense contest, but it was also a fundamentally sloppy affair, with both teams making errors and collecting few hits. In the sixth, the A’s blew two runs by a lack of focus and poise. If they lose the serious, this inning will go down in Boston and Oakland lore.

Eric Bryne was thrown out at home on an infield hit after colliding with Boston’s catcher, Jason Varitek. Bryne never touched the plate. The ball got away from Varitek, but Bryne shoved the catcher when he started after the ball, and then Bryne started to hobble off the field, unware that he hadn’t touched home. Varitek retrieved the ball, and tagged the unsuspecting Bryne for the out. Eric Chavez was the on deck hitter, and he should have been coaching Bryne to go back and touch the base, but he fell asleep at the wheel. It was an inexcusable error on Chavez’s part.

This huge error was outdone moments later when Miguel Tejada rounded third and headed for home on a Nomar Garciaparra error. The tying run had already scored when Tejada ran into the third baseman. (Jason Varitek had been awarded home earlier in the game, scoring Boston’s only run, on an obstruction call on Chavez, and Tejada.) The ump at third signaled interference by raising his hand, and Tejada slowed down. The throw from left field was ten feet up the line, but since Miggy had stopped running, the Sox tagged him and he was called out.

There will be much debate about whether the umps made the right call–there was a lengthy meeting with the entire crew following the play—but the bottom line is, Tejada was not awarded home plate and the A’s had squandered their second run of the innning. One could argue that Tejada had to sell the call, and that is why he stopped. You could also say that he assumed he would get to go home because that’s what had happened to Varitek earlier in the game. However, he chose to give up on the play. If he continued to run hard and finish the play, he would have scored, and the arguement would have effectively been moot.

All I could think about was when Jason Giambi scolded Tejada in Game 5 of the 2001 playoffs. (Derek Jeter would never make a mistake this this.) Both bullpens then did fantastitic relief jobs until Rich Harden gave up a two-out, pinch hit, walk off bomb to Trot Nixon in the bottom of the 11th.

It was fitting that Nixon got the game winner. He’s Mr. Red Sox as far as I’m concerned, and I’m glad he got to be the hero. But Boston did everything they could to not win the game. Their monstrous offense was impotent tonight against Ted Lily, who pitched a stellar game. Several members of the Sox actually taped Lily’s names on the back of their jackets, and stood at the top step of the Boston dugout, promting the fans to heckle Oakland’s young southpaw.

What a class bunch of guys. Kevin Millar, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the heart of the Red Sox offense, failed to cowboy up for the Home Nine, but fortunately for them, Oakland had other things than winning on their minds. If the A’s go on to lose this series, it’s going to get even colder than it already feels by the Bay.

They come back and play the early game tomorrow. Pedro will pitch in Game Five Monday, if it gets that far. Old man Burkett goes against Tim Hudson, who will pitch on three days rest, at 1:00 Sunday.

If tomorrow is anything like today, we’re in for a treat.