The Futility Infielder

I'm still suffering the aftereffects of a weekend surrendered to what I'm now calling Bicoastal Disorder -- an attempt to root two teams on opposite coasts through their blood rivalries in series with postseason implications. I watched all three Yankees-Red Sox games on TV and either watched or listened to parts of all three Dodgers-Giants games on MLB.tv. This meant that though I did spent part of Saturday in Yom Kippur services, there's a reasonable chance that Shawn Green did a better job at observing the holiday than I did. But atonement is a wonderful thing; I'm quite certain that catching the games falls well below charging my neighbor usurous interest, and I'll just have to remember to add my transgressions onto next year's tab.

Since the weekend, I've continued my West Coast night watch as the Dodgers have twice rallied to beat the Rockies in their final at-bat. On Monday they came from down 7-5 to win on a Milton Bradley single, and then last night they rallied from a 4-0 defecit thanks to Rox closer Shawn Chacon (1-9, 7.11 ERA) walking four straight batters. The wins were their 50th and 51st come-from-behind efforts and the 23rd and 24th times they've won in their final at-bat. As the Dodgers close in on their first division title in nine years, I'm one very happy camper.

As I've been pressed for time with a forthcoming project and then a trip out of town, what follows are a few notes from each of those weekend contests. Some of this may have already reached its sell-date, but what the hell, this is a special time for me and I'm determined to preserve it for my edification if nobody else's.

Friday night, Boston: After Pedro Martinez got pounded last Sunday in Yankee Stadium, it was a safe bet that he'd pitch better in Boston. And he did, for seven innings of a tight, see-saw ballgame that bore much more resemblance to the other tense contests of this season and last than to the two routs which the Yanks hung on the Sox last weekend. In the third inning, The Yanks scrapped for two runs on a hit-by-pitch, a single, two steals, an error, and two infield grounders, but the Sox answered right back with a two-run Manny jack off of Mike Mussina, then took the lead on a Trot Nixon solo shot in the fourth. The Yanks tied it again in the sixth on a Hideki Matsui walk, a Bernie Williams double, and a Ruben Sierra sac fly, but the Sox went ahead in the seventh when Johnny Damon homered off of Tom Gordon.

At this point -- 4-3 Sox after seven innings, with Pedro having thrown 101 pitches, and with the bones of the last Sox manager to tempt fate against the Yanks in such a situation strewn along the road to the World Series, it seemed academic that Boston manager Terry Francona would call upon a new pitcher. But the Red Sox have a knack for reminding us all that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, and so Martinez took the hill again. As a Yankee fan, I was licking my chops and tenting my fingers like Monty Burns: "Excellent."

When Matsui golfed Martinez's second pitch of the eighth into the bullpen in right-centerfield, Francona showed his steely resolve... or stubbornly refused to admit he was wrong in sending Martinez back out. Pedro stayed in. Bernie Williams doubled. Still, Pedro stayed in. Jorge Posada struck out, but then Sierra drove in Bernie with a single to give the Yanks a 5-4 lead. Finally, Francona went to his bullpen to escape the inning. The Yanks added another run on a Matsui double in the ninth off of Mike Timlin. Mariano Rivera, riding a two-game streak of futility against the Sox, walked Nixon to open the ninth, but his pinch-runner, Gabe Kapler (also playing on Yom Kippur, tsk-tsk), was erased in a double-play. Orlando Cabrera doubled, but Bill Mueller grounded back to Mo, and with that, the Yanks pulled to a 5.5 game lead, perhaps putting a stranglehold on the AL East flag.

Martinez was a reporter's dream after the game, coming up with several gems, the best of which was this one: "What can I say? I just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy." Some, including Harvey Araton of the New York Times, said it sounded like the pitcher was cozying up to the Yankees' boss:

Now he's speaking the language of Papa George Steinbrenner, who fancies himself the boldest of all ballpark paternalists, head of a household that lavishes more riches on baseball brats than anyone in American team sports.

If Pedro is calling the Yankees daddy, he may as well move on down to the Bronx when his contract expires after this season and take his place in the Steinbrenner family business.

Pedro in pinstripes? I'm not even going to waste my breath on that one until after the season. If the Sox haven't re-signed him by then, we'll have something to discuss.

The Yanks' rightfielder wasn't biting at Araton's line of reasoning:

Gary Sheffield said he suspected Martínez of dramatic role-play, of setting the scene for October.

"I think it's just a better story if he beats us," Sheffield said. "That's my thought."

Don't give him any ideas, Gary.

Friday Night, San Francisco: If Shawn Green's decision to play Friday and sit Saturday caused anybody a headache, it was the Giants, who came into the game trailing L.A. in the NL West by a game and a half, and a half-game behind the Cubs in the Wild Card standings. Green smashed a game-tying two run homer in the fourth inning off of Kirk Reuter. His shot got starter Odalis Perez, who had allowed second-inning solo homers to both Barry Bonds (# 702) and Yorvit Torrealba, off the hook.

Two batters after Green, second baseman Jose Hernandez added a solo homer off of Reuter. Meanwhile, Perez settled down and allowed only one other hit through eight innings. He'd thrown only 92 pitches, but in a one-run game, manager Jim Tracy went to the best closer in the NL if not the game, Eric Gagne.

The goggled one had thrown two adventurous innings the night before, and it showed. He got two quick groundouts, one on diving stop by shortstop Cesar Izturis, but then he walked Pedro Feliz on four pitches. Next up was Barry Bonds, representing the game-winning run, so the decision to walk him was academic. Things got a bit tense when Gagne walked J.T. Snow on four pitches as well to load the bases. Torrealba then caused just about every hyperventilating Dodger fan even more respiratory distress by lining a shot to leftfield. But it was right at Jayson Werth, who held the ball to preserve the win. Whew!

Saturday afternoon, San Francisco: The Dodgers got off to a rolling start, taking the lead in the first on an Adrian Beltre two-run double. But by the bottom of the second, the Giants had tied things up, first on a Ray Durham homer, then on a Michael Tucker double and a single by pitcher Brad Hennessey (who?). Alex Cora gave the Dodgers the lead again with a two-run homer, and a Jose Lima single chased Hennessey.

But Lima, who was pitching with a broken thumb, couldn't make it out of the bottom of the fourth. The Giants strung together three hits and a sac fly to get two runs, the big blow a double from Durham. They took the lead in the fifth on a Tucker sacrifice fly, but the Dodgers came back with a Milton Bradley homer. More fun than a barrel of monkeys for Dodger fans. Aggravation for Giants fans.

The 5-5 tie went into the eighth. The Giants loaded the bases against Yhency Brazoban on a single, a sacrifice and two walks. Brazoban had allowed a mere three runs in his 29 major-league innings up to this point, the rookie instantly becoming a stellar cog in the Dodger bullpen. But by the time Pedro Feliz came to bat, he had already thrown 32 pitches to get three outs; by comparison, he'd tossed only 29 in two innings on Thursday. Brazoban was still bringin' it when he faced Feliz, but his 97 MPH fastball left the field even more quickly, a game-breaking grand slam for the Giants. In the immortal words of Seattle Pilots manager and Ball Four icon Joe Schultz, "Ah, shitfuck."

Saturday evening, Boston: Even with the Yankees having removed some of the weekend's suspense, this started out as another nail-biter, though not a pretty one. Hideki Matsui started the scoring off with a homer off of Tim Wakefield in the second. Wakefield, who beat the Yanks twice in last year's Championship Series before throwing a fateful pitch to Aaron Boone, didn't have his best knuckler working for him on this night. Jorge Posada smoked a pair of two-run doubles off of him, one to take a 3-1 lead in the fourth, the second to tie the game at 5 in the sixth.

Meanwhile, the Sox battered the hapless Javier Vazquez, who is in danger of losing his spot in the postseason rotation. The YES announcers spent much time calling attention to the way Vazquez's front shoulder continues to fly open, messing with his command and control. Vazquez says he just wants to pitch, he doesn't want to worry about his mechanics. Earth to Javy: 6.61, 7.43, 6.51 -- those are your ERAs by month in the second half. Start worrying about your mechanics, or pick up your golf clubs before the weekend.

Having already yielded a run in the second, Vazquez gave up a two-run homer to catcher Doug Mirabelli in the fourth, then coughed up four hits and two runs in the fifth before Joe Torre gave him the hook. How bad is he? Well, by comparison, Tanyon Sturtze looks like a world-beater. That's bad.

The 5-5 tie lasted until the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Johnny Damon singled off of Paul Quantrill, another pitcher over whom Sturtze now towers. Mark Bellhorn walked, Manny Ramirez doubled in Damon, and then David Ortiz was intentionally walked. C. J. Shitkowski (oops, Nitkowski) arrived, and all hell broke loose. He gave up a two-run ground-rule double to Jason Varitek, plunked Trot Nixon, and was relieved by Scott Proctor, who... well, by this time I was fast-forwarding the TiVo, but the record shows four more runs scored.

The day's tally: my two teams took 5-5- ties into the eighth and were outscored 11-0 in that inning. Note to self: might rethink next year's atonement/baseball hierarchy.

Sunday afternoon, Boston: Until the day before, Joe Torre had sounded pretty lukewarm about the prospect of Kevin Brown starting this game. Brown had the pins in his self-inflicted broken hand removed on Friday, though as to whether the doctors were able to perform a sorely needed head-in-ass-ectomy on the pitcher, no reports were forthcoming.

But Brown's throwing on Friday had satisfied Torre, and so he got the ball on Sunday. And got more misery for his trouble, lasting only two-thirds of an inning as the Sox put several dents in the outfield walls at his expense. The injury-prone Brown may well beg out of his next start due to whiplash after watching some of those shots go by. I couldn't help jeer him from my spot on the couch; one of my houseplants died due to the toxic spew of invective I lavished on Brown. I now find him nearly as impossible to root for as I do Curt Schilling, his opposite number on the day.

Esteban Loazia came in and poured his own special blend of gasoline onto the fire, and once he allowed three runs in the second inning, I shifted into TiVo overdrive. Loiza departed at 9-2 in the sixth. Steve Karsay, rumored to be battling for a postseason roster spot but with curiously little work to show for it --as in none in a whole week -- arrived to make matters worse with a run-scoring wild pitch and then a sac fly. Next pitcher, please!

The eighth inning brought some silliness to the whole affair. Earlier in the game, Kenny Lofton had taken issue with the footwork of Boston first baseman Doug Mienkiewicz as he'd grounded out. A less charitable ballplayer would have simply spiked Minky and done some serious damage to his Achilles tendon, while a less fortunate one would have tripped over the first baseman's heel and taken a potentially injurious spill. Either way, Lofton had reason to offer an elbow as he went by. The two exchanged heated words as the third inning ended.

With the game's outcome now academic, Pedro Astacio had come in to pitch for the Sox. Astacio is a reclamation project trying to come back from a torn labrum and carrying a 12.27 ERA. With nothing to offer but trouble, he threw inside to Lofton and then threw one two feet behind him, at which point home plate ump Jim Wolf warned both benches. But crew chief Tim McClelland wasnt satisfied with that measure, and as if to say, "We're not putting up with any of this shit today," simply tossed Astacio. Terry Adams came on to hurry up with the business of walking Lofton. Two batters later he faced Andy Phillips, who was making his major-league debut. Phillips is no prospect; he's 27, but he hit an impressive .318/.388/.569 with 26 homers while playing all three infield bags (mostly first). In a more just world, he'd get a shot at a Scott Spiezio-type utility job. Torre gave playing time to Phillips' Columbus teammates Felix Escalona and Dioner Navarro, but outside of their families, I don't think anybody else noticed.

Sunday evening, San Francisco:Yet another back-and-forth battle. I tuned in just in time to miss Barry Bonds' game-tying homer in the third off of Jeff Weaver (oh, the irony of him pitching the same day as his opposite number on the Yanks). Nervously I paced around in front of my computer as the Dodgers added runs in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh innings while Weaver danced in and out of trouble. Alex Cora drove in the run in the fourth with a single and homered in the sixth, matching his tally for the day before. Thanks to an effective platoon with Jose Hernandez, Dodger second basemen have hit .285/.378/.452 with 20 jacks, perhaps the finest testament to the job Jim Tracy has done this season.

Weaver departed in the seventh having provided the Dodgers with a rarity -- a quality start. Though not spectacular, he's been doing that all year; meanwhile only six out of the previous 15 Dodger starters had even lasted five innings, never mind the run counts.

The Giants put one over on the Dodger relievers thanks to a Cora error, but they got it back in the ninth when Marquis Grisson misplayed a Milton Bradley fly ball into a three-base error, scoring Shawn Green. Bradley was erased at home when Cora failed to get down a squeeze bunt, but the three run lead was enough -- just barely -- for Gagne. After he got two quick outs, Bonds reached on an infield single and J.T. Snow walked, bringing Deivi Cruz to the plate as the tying run. But Cruz went down swinging, Gagne and I pumped our fists, and the Dodgers had their first September series win over the Giants in the Jim Tracy era, putting them 2.5 up on the Giants going into the season's final week. It ain't over yet, but first place is a nice place to be right now.