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John Harper makes me laugh.
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Extra effort seems to put Yanks in running
By JOHN HARPER
DAILY NEWS SPORTS COLUMNIST
If a team that began the night with a double-digit deficit in the standings can make a statement, then surely this was it. Maybe the Yankees aren't quite as dead as they had led us to believe.
On a night when they absolutely needed to make a stand, as much for their own psyche as for what it meant in the standings, the Yankees smacked Curt Schilling and the Red Sox all around the Stadium last night, as if they could will themselves to such an impressive performance.
So now the question is simple: Was the timing merely coincidence? Was this a singular, spirited effort punctuated by Andy Pettitte's gutsy pitching - or the start of something bigger?
One thing is for sure: in ambushing the Sox early and rolling to an 8-3 victory, these Yankees didn't look anything like the team we've been watching for the first seven weeks of the season. Of course, that is surely more of an indictment than a compliment, because even with their pitching problems the Yankees had no business playing such uninspired baseball of late.
Last night it was easy to play with super-charged intensity. Yankee fans understood the urgency of needing to win this series from the Sox, and so the Stadium had a different feel from the start, exploding with October-like noise and energy from the first inning, when Pettitte struck out Big Papi Ortiz swinging at a slider.
Afterward, Derek Jeter called the win "huge" and said the difference in recent days, as the Yankees won three of four from the Mets and Red Sox, was an intensity level that had been missing. "As long as our intensity level is there," he said, "we'll be fine."
When someone suggested the intensity can't possibly remain at this level, Jeter interrupted.
"Why is that?" he said, more of a challenge than a question.
"There's no reason we can't sustain this kind of intensity," he said. "The atmosphere might be different, I realize that, but our approach shouldn't change."
It's not lip service with Jeter, we know that by now. If you wanted a reminder, he provided it last night. If the Yankees were trying to send a message to the Red Sox not to get comfortable just yet in first place in the AL East, a spot that has belonged to the Yankees come October for nine straight years, Jeter may have made them notice with a play when the game was already well in hand.
He led off the seventh with a shot off Brendan Donnelly up the left-center gap. It was a double all the way, yet Jeter, determined to add to a 6-1 lead, surprised Sox center fielder Coco Crisp by speeding around second and earning a triple with a play that smelled of killer instinct.
"I wasn't stopping," Jeter said. "With the Red Sox you have to take every opportunity you can to put them away. Even if you have a 10-run lead, you don't feel safe against them. So you try to do anything you can to make sure."
It's an attitude the Yankees will need to climb out of the hole they've dug in the standings. And sure enough, when Hideki Matsui followed with a single up the middle to score Jeter, suddenly the Yankees looked dangerous again.
They looked that way from the start, with an early eruption right from some blueprint. A seemingly rejuvenated Johnny Damon doubled to right-center. Jeter made the right play, hitting the ball to the right side, and was rewarded for it with a single off second baseman Dustin Pedroia's glove that scored Damon. And then Matsui unloaded on Schilling for a two-run home run.
The lineup looked like one that is surely here to stay for awhile. Better Matsui in the No.3 hole than Bobby Abreu, that's for sure. If Matsui gets hot there, the way Damon, Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada are swinging the bats in front and behind him, suddenly the Yankee hitters could be as lethal as they've been anemic in recent weeks.
Perhaps most significant, the Yankees didn't settle for the quick three. They added single runs in each of the next three innings, getting contributions up and down the lineup.
Surely this all meant something, right? Surely it wasn't just that Schilling was awful. Joe Torre indicated that he believes his team found out something about itself by raising its level to survive against the Mets and Red Sox.
But what happens when the Sox leave town now, and the Stadium isn't rocking the way it was last night? Can the Yankees summon this type of effort on a nightly basis?
What if last night was the easy part? Faced with falling 11-1/2 games behind the Sox, the Yankees dug deep, shook off their lethargy and proved to themselves that they can win a gut-check game in impressive style.
Now they need to prove they don't need a full-scale crisis to play like this more often. Or it won't mean much.
jharper@nydailynews.com |
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