Momentum shifted, and pressure is on
NEW YORK -- Seventy-eight years, it has been, since the last time the Yankees lost the final two games of a best-of-seven series at home. Seventy-eight years since Grover Cleveland Alexander came out of the bullpen to whiff Tony Lazzeri, since Babe Ruth was thrown out trying to steal second, and the Cardinals won the World Series.
But unless the beleaguered Bombers can win tonight's American League Championship Series finale at the Stadium, they'll become the first ball club ever to blow a 3-0 lead and go down as the biggest chokers in the history of organized baseball.
"Here we go again," said captain Derek Jeter, after the back-from-the-dead Red Sox beat them, 4-2, to even the series at three games apiece. "All we can do is forget about this one and come back tomorrow."
On Saturday night, Jeter and his pinstriped playmates were riding high after a ludicrous 19-8 victory that left all of New England wringing its hands.
Last night, they were beaten by a 37-year-old pitcher on one leg and a No. 9 hitter who hit a three-run homer to the opposite field that bounced off a fan and back onto the field. Ask not for whom the Bell(horn) tolls . . .
"You can say they were in a slump the first three games," said Jeter, who didn't get on base until the eighth inning. "Now, we're in a slump. That happens sometimes."
It has never, ever, happened to any team that has won the first three games. Until Boston did it last night, none had even come back from that hole to force a seventh.
"Now, it's a one-game playoff," said first baseman Tony Clark, who struck out for the third time to end the game when he could have won it with one swing. "We're looking forward to coming back and play tomorrow."
That is what the Yankees have been saying ever since they lost in 12 innings Sunday night. We like our situation. We'll come back tomorrow. And tomorrow . . .
Last night, they had exactly the situation they wanted. Jon Lieber, who hadn't lost since Aug. 20 and had baffled the Red Sox in Game 2, was on the mound. So was Curt Schilling, whom New York had battered here in the opener.
"He threw the same, the absolute same," said Jeter. "We just didn't get very much off him."
Except for Bernie Williams, who took Schilling into the upper deck in right field in the seventh and No. 9 hitter Miguel Cairo, who smacked a pair of doubles, the Yankees did little.
"He did a good job of moving the ball around," said catcher Jorge Posada, who was hitless in four at-bats.
If Schilling's jury-rigged right ankle had given way or the Yankees been able to bang him around and get into the Boston bullpen early, they might have been drinking pennant champagne for the 40th time last night. Neither happened. And when Bellhorn, who was hitting .150 in the series and had been dropped to the bottom of the order, lofted a ball into the left-field seats, New York found itself in a 4-0 hole in the fourth.
"I didn't think it would go that far," said Posada.
Still, the Yankees had come from four runs down to beat Boston for the pennant here last year. Why couldn't they do it again. So when Williams hit his solo shot and Jeter knocked in Cairo in the eighth, the Stadium was abuzz. Then Alex Rodriguez, the man the Sox craved, karate-chopped Bronson Arroyo's hand while running out a grounder. He was called out for interference and Jeter was removed from scoring position.
Came the ninth, with closer Keith Foulke walking Hideki Matsui and Ruben Sierra and running up a full count on Clark with two outs.
"He made a pitch away," said Clark. "Something I should have done something with -- and I didn't."
So it comes down to one game.
"Same as last year," Jeter said. "If you asked people at the beginning of the series if it would go seven games, they thought it would happen."
So it has. It's just never happened this way before. And if the Yankees can't wake up a few ghosts tonight, they'll go into the history book in a way they'd never dreamed of. 