Newest Yankees fail to deliver
NEW YORK -- They had just been on the bottom side of the greatest el foldo in major league baseball playoff history. Maybe at some point down the road, that will irk the Yankees.
But after losing, 10-3, last night, to lose a best-of-seven series they led, 3-0, the operative word in the Yankee clubhouse was "frustration." They were frustrated at blowing the 3-0 lead. They were frustrated at being crushed at home in the winner-take-all game. They were frustrated at being so close and not being able to close the deal.
"We had our chances," said Alex Rodriguez after an 0-for-4 night in which he admitted he played "like [expletive]."
He was right. "We just could not deliver the knockout punch," Rodriguez said. "I wish I knew why. It's crushing. We were up, 3-0. We lost twice at home."
A-Rod's performance over the final four games, along with that of Gary Sheffield, mirrored the Yankees' play in the series. Over the first three games, they, along with Hideki Matsui, were unstoppable. Over the last four games, A-Rod had two hits, Sheffield one, and the Yankees' big bats were silent.
It was a weird series for Rodriguez, a matchup of the teams that tried to trade for him last winter. The Red Sox didn't get him. The Yankees did.
Rodriguez was a terror in the first three games. But his bat disappeared after that (save for a Game 4 homer). He made a silly hand gesture in Boston after being robbed by Trot Nixon and then came the ridiculous play in Game 6, when he tomahawked the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove in the eighth inning.
The Red Sox players ripped him for being unprofessional. He was charged with interference, which not only meant he was out, but that base runner Derek Jeter had to return to his original base. Rodriguez merely said he'd have run over Arroyo if he had to replay the play. Yankees manager Joe Torre and general manager Brian Cashman both defended A-Rod's intentions, although Torre admitted before Game 7 last night that he still had not seen a replay of the play.
Then, in the critical Game 7, A-Rod did the following: He bounced to third, he bounced to the mound, he bounced to short and, in his last at-bat of the season, he fanned. He was a certifiable non-factor. He heard the boos.
"I'm embarrassed right now," Rodriguez said. "I do feel that in the long run, this is going to make us better, that we'll be a better team for it. But, right now, it's tough. It's frustrating as hell."
Rodriguez said, "We felt coming into this game that whoever won this game would win the World Series."
Asked if that meant he felt Boston would win, the always diplomatic A-Rod deferred, and said, "I don't think I'm even going to watch another baseball game until spring training."
Derek Jeter talked throughout the playoffs of never tiring of the winning feeling, "because every year, it's a different group of guys doing it in a different way."
Rodriguez was one of those different guys. So, too, was Sheffield, whose only hit in the last four games was in Game 6, a roller down the third-base line that hit the bag. Kevin Brown was another one. He was given the ball for the biggest game of his career and he was brutal, not getting out of the second inning.
"It was my job and I didn't get it done," Brown said. "Short of trading the health of my family, I'd do anything to be able to go back out there and give the team a chance to win."
Knowing George Steinbrenner, there will be a few more "different guys" here next year. Cashman admitted in the Yankee clubhouse after the game that the reconfiguring project probably will commence today. He saw a flawed Yankee team win 103 games and come from behind 61 times during the season to win.
"All season long, we found a way to get it done," Cashman said. "But so did the Red Sox. Every time they got close to us, or threatened us, we always responded. Unfortunately, at the most important time of the season, we didn't respond."
