The Futility Infielder

For the second night in a row, the Yanks outlasted a stellar start from a Marlin, but this time it was Florida who got the last late-inning laugh. Alex Gonzalez smacked a 12th-inning walk-off homer off of Jeff Weaver to give the Marlins a 4-3 win, tying the World Series at two games apiece. In a game whose dominant theme was Roger Clemens' final start, Carl Pavano got the better of the all-time great. But closer Ugueth Urbina squandered a 3-1 lead when he was one strike away from finishing the job, and the Yanks tied the game on a pinch-hit Ruben Sierra triple before losing it in extra innings.

This was an epic. Clemens' night began to take on eerie similarity to his ALCS Game Seven start with two out in the first inning. He was one strike away from finishing off Miguel Cabrera after a two-out single by Ivan Rodriguez, having delivered some chin music to the Marlins' rookie early in the at-bat. But the Rocket's seventh pitch of their showdown was a high-and-outside fastball which Cabrera reached out and touched for an opposite-field two-run homer, the Marlins' first of the series. The next three Marlins singled, whipping the Pro Player Stadium crowd into a frenzy as the Marlins upped their lead to 3-0. Clemens took an astonishing 42 pitches to get out of the inning, and it looked as though a quick and ignominious end would come to the Rocket's storied career.

But Clemens didn't get to 310 wins and 4,099 strikeouts by relying solely on his now-diminished natural talents. The Rocket gritted this one out, settling into a groove and fighting admirably for seven innings, allowing no further runs and only three more hits. With his spot in the order due to begin the Yankee eighth, flashbulbs twinkled to the point of distraction once he got two outs in the bottom of the seventh. In an eight-pitch at-bat that seemed a metaphor for Clemens' night, he struck out Luis Castillo looking, then slapped his glove as the 65,934 fans in Pro Player -- long with teammates and opponents -- gave him a lengthy, well-deserved ovation. A classy gesture from the Florida crowd.

Pavano started shakily. After a scoreless first, the Yanks loaded the bases in the second inning on a Bernie Williams single and then consecutive infield hits by Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. The Marlins began warming up Rick Helling in the bullpen, but Pavano recovered to strike out Karim Garcia and held Aaron Boone to a sacrifice fly before K'ing Clemens to end the inning.

The Yanks got two runners on in the third to no avail, and from there Pavano cruised, allowing only a bloop single by Clemens to lead off the fifth and thus retiring 15 of the final 16 batters he faced. Only when Urbina came on in the ninth did the Yanks' offensive pulse return. Williams stroked a one-out single, the third of his four hits on the night, and then Matsui survived a 1-2 count to draw a walk. Posada hit into a fielders' choice, erasing Matsui and then yielding to pinch-runner David Dellucci. Sierra, batting for Garcia, got ahead of Urbina 3-0, took two strikes, and then fouled off two more pitches before lining a shot into the rightfield corner which cleared the bases and evened the ballgame, taking Clemens off the hook for what would have been the only World Series loss of his career. But with a chance to give the Yanks a lead and summon Mariano Rivera, Useless Aaron Boone -- how quickly we forget, eh? -- failed to pick up Sierra, grounding out to shortstop to end the inning.

Jose Contreras came on instead of Rivera, his first appearance since his ALCS Game Six meltdown a week ago. He sawed through the Marlins in the ninth, striking out two. The Marlins did put a runner in scoring position in the tenth on a leadoff walk by Juan Pierre and a Castillo sacrifice, but El Titan de Bronze struck out Rodriguez and Cabrera to end the inning.

The Yanks got a two-out Derek Jeter double in the tenth off of Chad Fox which went for naught, and they loaded the bases in the eleventh via a Williams double, a Matsui walk, a Dellucci sacrifice, and an intentional walk to Juan Rivera. But Braden Looper, Game Three's goat, came on to face Useless Boone, who's been batting blindfolded, Jedi-style, the entire postseason. Boone struck out, and backup catcher John Flaherty popped out, quashing a potential rally.

The Dellucci sacrifice (sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel) was an interesting strategic decision. Again, I'm not much of a littleball fan, but here the Yanks had runners on first and second with none out and a double-play in order. After the bunt, which was perfectly executed, the Yanks had one out, two runners in scoring position, and no double-play threat. Had Boone been able to make contact, even without hitting safely, the Yanks could have scored. But he didn't, and the game continued.

In a shocking move, Joe Torre summoned Jeff Weaver to pitch the eleventh. The ass-end of the Yankee staff hadn't pitched in exactly four weeks. "I'll bet he can lose this game in ten pitches," I glumly told my chums. But Weaver took care of the Marlins 1-2-3 on eight pitches, giving the Yanks another shot. Alas, they managed only a two-out Giambi single.

Weaver came back out to start the twelfth, facing Gonzalez to lead off the inning. He went to a full count on the Marlins' shortstop (bypassing my 10-pitch prediction), watched Gonzalez spoil a couple pitches by fouling them off, then left a fastball over the plate. Gonzalez, who'd been only 5-for-53 in the postseason, poked a ball down the leftfield line for a Get Off My Property homer, and suddenly the Marlins are back in the Series.

The question must be asked -- what was Torre thinking by sending Weaver into a tie ballgame in the first place? The kindest estimate of his abilities this season would place him about the 14th-best option for Torre (behind every other pitcher on the Yankee postseason roster, plus non-roster pitchers Antonio Osuna, Al Reyes, and Jorge DePaula, and then arguably Mel Stottlemyre, Ron Guidry, Whitey Ford, and the late Allie Reynolds...). But with a 2-1 lead in games, with Rivera having thrown two innings the previous night, and with another ballgame looming Thursday night, Torre chose his long reliever for the extra-inning spot. The choice can be second-guessed until the cows come home, but the other non-Rivera pitchers the Yanks had remaining were all lefties -- Felix Heredia, Gabe White, and Chris Hammond -- and the Marlins' lineup except for Pierre was entirely right-handed. The gamble didn't pay off for Torre or the Yanks, but one could see where he was coming from. On the other hand, Hammond is that rare lefty with a reverse platoon split (.648 OPS against righties, .797 against lefties this season), and if he's on the roster at all, it's for that reason. Grrrrrrrr.

So the World Championship will now be decided by a best-of-three, starting with David Wells and Brad Penny slated for a rematch of their Game One tango. Wells notched a huge fifth-game win in the ALCS, and this may well be his finale in pinstripes, so the Yanks can reasonably expect another big game from the big man. Penny had to have gained confidence from his performance on Saturday, the first postseason start in which he wasn't knocked out. But he's not likely to go deep into the ballgame, and if the Yanks have shown anything in the Series, it's that they can get to the Marlins bullpen -- eight runs in 15 innings thus far (4.80 ERA), compared to nine in 25 innings for the starters (3.24 ERA).

One other thing the Yanks have shown is that they desperately need to shuffle their lineup to get Alfonso Soriano And His Amazing Strikeout Machine out of the leadoff spot. I'd love to see Joe Torre post a lineup with Jeter leading off, followed by Williams, Matsui, Posada, and Giambi, with Sori down in the #6 or #7 slot, and Enrique Wilson playing third base instead of Useless Boone, who can do nothing but besmirch his pinstriped legacy with his continually futile at-bats. But it's not going to happen that way. If the Yanks win, they're going to do it by grinding another one out with the same cast of characters that's gotten them this far. Joe Torre's nothing if not consistent.