Rough house
Sox get down and dirty, rally to bump off Yankees
Yankees reliever Scott Proctor may have escaped suspension yesterday for putting Kevin Youkilis on his back Friday night with a helmet-grazing fastball that Red Sox owner John W. Henry found "clear and disturbing" in its intent, but punishment was meted out by the Sox in perhaps more satisfying fashion during an 11-6 win over the Bombers yesterday at Fenway Park.
Proctor was on the mound when the Sox overtook the Yankees with a bizarre five-run, seventh-inning rally fueled by intentional walks, two errors by Yankees captain Derek Jeter, and a frightening collision involving Mike Lowell that dazed Doug Mientkiewicz, the Yankees' first baseman and an old pal from Miami, and sent him to the hospital. Tests at Massachusetts General Hospital determined Mientkiewicz had a mild concussion, a cervical sprain, and a fractured bone in his right wrist. He will be placed on the disabled list today.
And when it was over -- after a crowd of 36,294 serenaded the losers with "Where Is Roger?" and saluted Youkilis for unselfishly taking three walks at the expense of his 23-game hitting streak -- the cries of foul play this time came from the Yankees, whose hopes of building momentum with a sweep this weekend crumbled along with Proctor.
The accused was Lowell, but not for the play in which Mientkiewicz, sprawling for a throw into Lowell's path at first base, took a blow to the head as Lowell ran past. Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano complained instead about a play in the second inning, in which Lowell lowered his shoulder into Cano midway between first and second in an unsuccessful attempt to break up a double play.
"He played dirty because he threw his elbow at me . . . he caught me in my arm," said Cano, who contended Lowell's action was more egregious than the dust-up Alex Rodriguez had May 22 in New York with Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, in which Rodriguez appeared to throw an elbow.
Lowell, who came up in the Yankees' system, denied he employed an elbow and said he was doing only what he'd been taught in the minors. "If the second baseman tried to tag you, you did everything in your power to not let him get rid of the ball," Lowell said. "I'm not throwing an elbow or anything, but I'm trying to make him not be able to throw the ball. He actually made a great play, he still got rid of it."
The strain of another long game (3 hours 39 minutes) plus a second rain delay in two days -- a 30-minute interruption that came in the fourth inning and had an adverse effect on both starting pitchers, Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina -- was apparent on both sides. Lowell was still smarting from being hit in the left hand the night before by a fastball from Yankees starter Chien-Ming Wang, though after trainers improvised a wrist wrap using a toe guard, Lowell swung the bat with authority, hitting his 11th home run, a double, and a single, and driving in four runs.
"It was like a football game," Sox manager Terry Francona said. "With the rain delay and the national broadcast, and us playing the Yankees, I think everybody leaves the game just mentally and physically exhausted . . . the coaches, the players, the umpires. A lot of hard baseball."
Lowell rejected the football analogy. "It was a baseball game," he said. "You can call it anything you want. Both teams are trying to win. It's as simple as that.
"They're trying to win. We're trying to win. We play hard. They play hard."
Schilling at the barricades had been enough to prevent a Red Sox losing streak from growing on the two previous occasions the Sox had lost two in a row. That would not be the case yesterday, as Schilling was knocked out by Jorge Posada's three-run home run in the sixth inning, when the Yankees added another run off Javier Lopez to take a 5-3 lead.
But Mussina was no better after the delay, giving up back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the inning to Lowell and Jason Varitek, a batter he'd always handled with ease. Varitek was 7 for 59 against Mussina, including double-play ground balls in his first two at-bats yesterday, before driving a Mussina pitch onto the black in center field.
"I don't think it helped either pitcher," Lowell said of the delay. "I don't think it helps a pitcher ever. You kind of run into that fine line -- if it's an hour, you definitely bring in another guy, a half an hour, you see if the guy can go. I don't think it's a comfortable situation for them."
The Sox' discomfort grew when Jeter homered off Joel Piñeiro to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead in the seventh, but David Ortiz opened the home seventh with a fly ball that appeared catchable but was played into a double by right fielder Bobby Abreu. Proctor issued an intentional walk to Manny Ramírez, then passed Youkilis on four pitches, which wasn't the plan. Lowell then grounded a ball to Cano, whose off-target throw to second sent Jeter into a 360-degree spin on his throw to first. The throw was to the right-field side of the bag and placed Mientkiewicz in Lowell's path. The players collided, the throw sailed past, and Ortiz and Ramírez scored.
With first base open, Proctor issued another intentional pass, this one to Varitek, but that also blew up on the Bombers, as Wily Mo Peña smoked a ball that Jeter couldn't handle to load the bases. Coco Crisp blooped an RBI single to center, Julio Lugo hit a sacrifice fly, and Pedroia, who had three hits, singled home a 10th run.
Hideki Okajima, who got four outs, was credited with his first big league win, and Jonathan Papelbon closed it out.
"Yeah, we had an ugly seventh inning," said Yankees manager Joe Torre, who learned before the game that Roger Clemens had a groin injury and would not be resuming his major league career tomorrow, as scheduled. "Without question, we just couldn't close the deal and there were some defensive plays we didn't make.
"You give any club extra outs and it is dangerous. You give this club extra outs and it's suicide." 