No question Mills a success as pinch hitter

NEW YORK -- When it was over, Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills, pressed into duty as manager after Terry Francona had been rushed to the hospital yesterday morning with chest pains, wondered if his close friend could use some company.

"I've got to see if Terry's got a bed beside him," said Mills, who came up a winner as a pinch hitter, guiding the Sox to a 7-3 win over the Yankees in another grueling game that did not tilt in the Sox' direction until the ninth inning, when they scored five times against Mariano Rivera, stunningly vulnerable yet again. "I felt like I needed one."

There would not have been any jokes afterward, except that when Mills returned to the clubhouse following the game, he found one message on his cellphone.

"It was from Terry," said Mills, who has known Francona for 25 years, since they were teammates and roommates at the University of Arizona. "He said, `I've left you alone all day long, but it's the ninth inning -- put in Foulkie.' "

Maybe for the first time since he'd walked into Francona's office that morning to tease the manager about snoozing on the bus to the ballpark, only to hear Francona say his chest was tight, did Mills feel a sense of relief.

"You really don't set something like that aside," Mills said. "I was concerned about him the whole game, even though we had a job to do."

Understand this, Mills said, about Francona, who in the winter of 2002 narrowly averted death, doctors told him, not once but two or three times while enduring a series of medical calamities that included blood clots in his lungs, staph infections in his knees, and massive bleeding in his thigh that nearly cost him his leg.

"Tito," Mills said, "doesn't complain about things."

What made Mills really worried, he said, was not when Francona told him about the chest pains. "Usually, it's tough to get one or two sentences out of him without him cracking some type of joke or crack," Mills said. "That wasn't there this time. Whether or not that meant something, it meant something to me."

Mills talked to Francona shortly after the manager arrived at the hospital. "He said, `I'll be all right. I don't know how long I'll be in here, Millsie, but I'll be all right. You know what to do.'

"I said, `I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about you.' "

Francona never even told him not to botch things up.

"That's what made me really nervous," Mills said.

If Mills isn't the most anonymous guy in a Sox uniform, he's 1-A. He's not a high-profile former manager, like Joe Torre's onetime bench coach, Don Zimmer. And his modest pedigree as a big league player -- 168 at-bats before a knee injury ended his career at 29 -- doesn't summon any memories for most fans. His son, Beau, who had people doing doubletakes at Fenway Park because he's a Tom Brady lookalike and is now starring in baseball at Fresno State, is probably better known than his dad.

But all eyes in New England and at least one Manhattan hospital room were turned on Mills, who yesterday afternoon was faced with a month's worth of stomach-churning decisions. It was a 2-2 game in the eighth when David Ortiz led off with a double off Tanyon Sturtze. The next hitter was David McCarty, playing first base because Kevin Millar had developed a cramp in his knee. Bunt McCarty? Nope, Mills said. "Not Mac."

McCarty flied to right. One out later, with Ortiz on third, Doug Mirabelli, catching because Tim Wakefield had started the game, came to the plate. Pinch hit Jason Varitek, who'd hit a tying home run the day before? Nope, Mills said.

"We thought about that," Mills said. "But Doug Mirabelli is a good fastball hitter against Sturtze, which is a good matchup. I didn't want to take him out of that situation and make it look like we had no confidence in him. When it got to 2-and-0, I was feeling pretty good about that matchup."

Mirabelli popped to second.

In the bottom of the inning, the Yankees had taken a 3-2 lead and Mike Timlin, rattled after beaning Derek Jeter, couldn't find the plate. The batter was lefthanded-hitting Hideki Matsui. Bring in Mike Myers, who specializes in such moments? Nope, Mills said. "We thought about that," he said. "But Wake had done such a good job against Matsui, and Timlin was starting to get it going. We wanted him to face him."

Matsui walked, loading the bases, but Timlin induced Jorge Posada to tap into an inning-ending out.

Down by a run to start the ninth, Bill Mueller drew a walk off Rivera. Bunt the next man, Mark Bellhorn? Nope, Mills said. "Leadoff guy gets on, we're swinging away," he said. Bellhorn whacked a single to right.

The next batter was Johnny Damon. Bunt Damon? Yep, said Mills, except when the count went to 2-and-1, he took the bunt sign off. Damon blooped a single to right, the bases were loaded, and the stage was set for the Sox to break through against Rivera, with the help of an error by Alex Rodriguez.

All that was left to do was for Mills to follow Francona's advice to bring in Keith Foulke . . . which, of course, he didn't get until after it was over. But Foulke got the final outs, the Sox had their first win of 2005, and Mills went back to worrying about his friend.

"He keeps telling me he'll be OK," Mills said. "They told me I may have to manage in Toronto. I'll stay in constant contact with Terry, do as much with him as he can do, go over things, then kind of regroup. But I hope he gets back soon."