Crisp was man with a plan

He had looked so down, so crushed. All trace of his trademark smile -- the one that graced those Red Sox Nation ads -- had been wiped away. Coco Crisp rarely joked with the media, sometimes brushing them off, sometimes making slightly odd statements, almost always appearing closed off and inaccessible.

It wasn't that way last night, especially after the massive media crowd gathered around his locker had dissipated. Crisp grinned, slapped a reporter on the back, and even managed a joke as he faced an unsuccessful attempt to wheedle his Mariano Rivera game plan -- concocted with hitting coach Dave Magadan and resulting in the game-tying triple -- out of him.

"I'll take that little bit of success and hope for more later on," Crisp cracked. "You want us to win, don't you?"

It was more than a whiff of confidence, impressive for a player who before last night's eighth-inning triple had never gotten a hit off the legendary Rivera (0 for 5, three strikeouts), and had been hitting a stultifying .167.

"When they were bringing him in, I went over to Mags and was like, 'I'm thinking about going up on my right side,' " Crisp said after the heart-stopping 7-6 win over the Yankees. "He gave me some information that I'd like to keep to myself for the next time. I tried to follow it, and it ended up working out for me."

Sure did. Having already missed out on a chance to save the Red Sox three runs when an Alex Rodriguez home run ticked off his glove as he flipped head-over-heels over the bullpen wall in the fifth inning, Crisp was plenty ready to let his bat make the difference.

"He was so close to not letting that ball go out," manager Terry Francona said. "That was a great effort. And then he comes back . . ."

And then Crisp, batting from the left, rifled a cutter down the first base line and flew around the bases, stopping at third as Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek came home. Alex Cora followed by fisting a single over Derek Jeter for his second straight winning hit, and Crisp took off for home as the difference in the game.

"I mean, it feels good to have a game like this," Crisp said. "It hasn't really been weighing on me too much because I know it's still early. Like I said [ Wednesday], who is last can become first. Just got to keep up there, try to believe that, hopefully, it'll turn around."

Though Crisp wasn't injured (other than a little stiffness) on the tumble, it was violent to watch. Running backward, tracking the ball from Rodriguez, Crisp -- a player who maintains he'd rather make the winning catch than the winning hit -- met the top of the fence with the middle of his back. And, before anyone blinked, his legs flew up and he was on the ground with bullpen personnel flocking to him.

"Because I didn't get that catch, it kind of makes up for it," Crisp said. "I was able to hit in a couple. The catch I would have been able to [prevent] three. It tipped off my glove. I was that close. It definitely feels good to be able to come back and contribute to helping the team win in some fashion."

With his two hits -- an infield single in the seventh, and that triple in the eighth -- this might have been the turn around for the center fielder. Though, knowing the nature of baseball, today's game could very well bring another 0-fer.

But Crisp said that, even before last night's game, he made an effort to be more outgoing, to show the smile, to lift the weight that he said wasn't there.

"I started before the game," Crisp said. "I just pretty much said, 'Ah, forget it.' Just go out there, see what happens. Don't try to do too much. Just go out there and play.

"Just trying to do the same thing every day, and it wasn't really working. Come in, get early hitting, wasn't working. I don't get early hitting and I get two hits. I'm like, 'That doesn't make no sense.' I just try different things, not on the field or your approach . . . but to see what works to get you where you need to be."

Like where he was on that final at-bat, after that strategy session with Magadan.

"I was just focusing on what I wanted to do," Crisp said. "It so happened that playing to what my plan was, that one particular time, it just ended up working out for me."

With that plan for success still tucked in the back of his mind, he's ready for more good things to happen. He might even be ready for Rivera again.

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.