Yankees seize control

Jeter again the catalyst as they zip by Marlins

By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff, 10/22/2003

MIAMI -- The colorful nickname, and the early line on the World Series MVP trophy, belongs to the Japanese import, Hideki Matsui, who drove in the go-ahead run in the New York Yankees' 6-1 win over the Florida Marlins last night.

With a three-run home run that jump-started the Yankees in Game 2, Godzilla has left huge footprints on the 99th World Series, which the Yankees now lead, two games to one, after Mike Mussina outdueled Josh Beckett for his first win of this postseason. Roger Clemens's grand finale is on tap tonight.

No one has been inventive enough to come up with a nickname for Derek Jeter that has stuck. But there is a common thread woven through this pinstriped pattern of postseason success, and its name is Jeter.

Jeter had his team's only three hits off Beckett, Florida's precocious 23-year-old ace. He doubled and scored the Yankees' first run in the fourth on Jorge Posada's bases-loaded walk, and doubled and scored the tie-breaking run in the eighth on Matsui's single off Dontrelle Willis, another one of the Marlins' kids. Some textbook base running by Jeter, advancing from second to third on Bernie Williams's fly to medium center, preceded Matsui's decisive hit.

And it was Jeter, remember, whose double off Pedro Martinez in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the ALCS was the beginning of the end for the Red Sox.

For now, there is no better sobriquet for Jeter than "Yankee captain," a title he richly deserves.

"It took me 30-something years to get the World Series, he thinks it's an every-year experience," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "You look in his eyes, and you see something special, because he's a leader. He's been a leader since he was 20 years old. He's dealing with some physical problems [sore wrist], but it doesn't keep him from needing to win.

"He had to work. Beckett is not easy. We watched him on TV. Our scouts couldn't praise anybody any higher than they praised him. But Derek Jeter? I like to believe they're all special, but I've been watching this guy for eight years."

Beckett had struck out 10, including the three previous batters, when Jeter reached out in the eighth and slapped a double inside the first-base line.

"How many guys in this room thought Jeter was going to hit the ball down the right-field line? We didn't," huffed Marlins manager Jack McKeon, whose mood wasn't made any better by the way he thought plate umpire Gary Darling had squeezed Beckett in the fourth, when he walked Jason Giambi and Posada on full counts and hit Matsui in the foot with a 1-and-2 pitch.

Jeter explained he was looking for a fastball that would cut away from him. The pitch ran even further away from him than he anticipated, but he still was able to get the bat on the ball.

Matsui reportedly has arranged for Cooperstown to have the bat with which he hit his Game 2 home run -- the first time a Japanese player has hit a home run in the World Series. He may need to surrender another bat, plus cap, uniform, and sanitary socks if he keeps this up, his slashed single to left field off Willis the decisive hit of the night.

"You gotta come up with big hits, especially two-out hits, and he's been doing that all year for us," Jeter said. "You hear `Godzilla,' and you automatically assume he'll be swinging for the fences. The thing about him is he understands the game and he'll take a hit the other way."

Showing the flip side of what can happen to a team when it takes out its best starter, the Yankees unloaded on the Marlins' bullpen in the ninth, Aaron Boone making a mockery of Chad Fox's exaggerated fist pump from the inning before with a home run, and Williams clearing the center-field fence with a three-run home run off Braden Looper.

Williams's home run set a record for most postseason home runs, 19, breaking the mark he shared with Mickey Mantle and Reggie Jackson. But even Williams acknowledged that he has benefitted from the extra rounds of playoffs.

The game, which began at 8:32 p.m., ended at 12:33 a.m., in part because of a 39-minute rain delay in the bottom of the fifth. The last Series game to be interrupted by rain came in 1982, when the Cardinals and Brewers were held up for 2 hours and 13 minutes.

The Marlins scored their only run in the first inning, when Juan Pierre's liner dropped between Williams and right fielder Karim Garcia for a leadoff double, Florida's first extra-base hit of the series after 13 singles. Pierre came around on a two-out single by Miguel Cabrera, the Marlins' 20-year-old prodigy. But that was all the Marlins could muster against Mussina, who escaped one jam when Pudge Rodriguez was trapped off third on a comebacker in the sixth, and dodged more trouble in the seventh when he struck out Luis Castillo with two on. Mariano Rivera pitched the last two innings for his ninth World Series save.

The Marlins have scored a total of five runs in three games.

"We're not hitting like we're capable of, no question about that," McKeon said.

"In our case, being in the World Series for the first time, some of our guys might be a little bit anxious. But I don't really see that being a problem. We were down, two games to one, to the Cubs, we were down, three games to one, and we were in the same position. We weren't hitting. And we were giving up too many bases on balls. All of a sudden it turned around."

But standing between the Marlins and that turnaround is Clemens, in his final start as a big-leaguer. Can a team named after a fish cowboy up?