No shock, just awe as Jeter produces

What a ballplayer.

It has been a dozen years and Joe Torre still shakes his head in appreciation and awe.

"He took care of it tonight," Torre said of Derek Jeter's three-run homer in the eighth inning that enabled the Yankees to beat the Red Sox, 4-3, at Fenway Park. "I have been here 12 years and he has been here 12 years and when he was really young, I used to marvel at it, but after the first couple of years, it is not a shock anymore."

It's only a shock with he doesn't come through.

It was a 2-and-2 count and Jeter was digging into the batter's box with an incredible calmness displayed by few people in the game. The pitch Curt Schilling threw with runners at second and third and two outs - and one strike away from the Sox leaving the eighth inning still tied, 1-1 - was up in the strike zone.

When that happens, the Yankees captain usually doesn't miss.

It was an 84-mile-an-hour splitter that hung up there and hung up there. Jeter put a nice swing on it and slugged it into the Monster Seats to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead in the rubber game.

With the win, the Yankees stay three games ahead of the Detroit Tigers in the loss column for the American League wild card.

There aren't enough superlatives to describe him. Jeter has done this so many times in his career, just as Joe DiMaggio had done long before Jeter was born.

"He's one of the reasons that I came back here to play," said Roger Clemens, who allowed no earned runs over six innings in a courageous performance of his own. "He's a guy who gets it. When the game is on the line, he steps up like nobody you'll ever see play this game. That's unbelievable to work with a guy like that. He's been like that for years.

"He's an amazing player and teammate. So unselfish in everything he does. He won't take any credit at all for what he just did. He won us a game. We had a lot of guys do great things. But to come up in that spot and win the game for us, what can you say."

We all understand the reasons Schilling pitched to him. Lefthanded-hitting Bobby Abreu was on deck and you never want your righthander to pitch to a lefthanded hitter. But in this case, given Jeter's track record for clutch, it might have been a good idea to load the bases and take a chance with Abreu.

Getting to a 2-and-2 count with Jeter is almost a success in itself and Schilling was fortunate to reach that point. Jeter hit the homer on the sixth pitch after fouling off a fastball down the right-field foul line. Schilling's splitter had excellent movement all night. You can't say he was fatigued because he was under 90 pitches in what was an extremely economical outing against one of the toughest lineups.

Second baseman Robinson Cano, who had drilled two homers off him in a 5-0 Sox loss Aug. 30, went at it again with a fifth-inning opposite-field homer on a 1-and-0 pitch into the Monster Seats.

It was 1-1. Clemens, 45, pitching with a damaged tendon in his right elbow, had left the game after six strong innings and left Schilling as the only graybeard standing through seven, and then eight.

Doug Mientkiewicz, who made two nice plays on behalf of Clemens's cause, stroked a single to left field with one out in the eighth. Pinch hitter Jason Giambi came within a foot of homering to left field with a Wall double. After Schilling broke Johnny Damon's bat and induced a grounder to second base with the infield drawn in for the second out, it appeared Schilling was in command.

But Jeter wasn't buying it.

He hadn't exactly lit it up on this nine-game, 10-day Yankees road trip - 6 for 30 with one homer and two RBIs before the at-bat. But he seemed to be seeing the ball well. He stroked a hard single to the Wall in the first inning, then made a couple of nondescript outs, even stranding a runner in scoring position in the third.

"They're fun," said Jeter of these situations. "You're not always going to come through, but I enjoy them. Ever since you're a little kid, you dream about being up in big situations and envision yourself coming through. There aren't a lot of times you envision yourself making an out, but I've had plenty of situations where I've failed, but I just enjoy it."

He enjoys it because he believes in his ability to get the job done.

"You have to have that confidence. I'm not going to step into the box saying, 'What if I make an out?' That's not the approach I'm going to be taking. Like I said, it's not always going to happen. Curt Schilling has a lot of confidence out there, too. On a different day, it might be a different result. I like those situations."

And the Yankees like having him in those situations just as the Red Sox enjoyed having David Ortiz up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with two outs against Mariano Rivera. Ortiz didn't get it done this time, but Jeter's been through enough Red Sox-Yankees series to know Ortiz will get his share.

"Sometimes you're gonna have good swings and you're gonna get out and you're gonna to have poor swings and you're gonna get hits. We try to make it fun for you guys. We've been pretty evenly matched. We play each other so many times. I don't think it's a coincidence that these teams have finished at the top of the division so often," he said.

Think he'll be playing Boston again?

"I would like to think that means we're there [in the playoffs]. I'm sure if you asked them, they'd say the same thing," said Jeter.

The popular Yankees shortstop has also enjoyed having Clemens return to New York. Nobody pushed harder for his return. He had daily pleas with Clemens while the righthander was trying to decide between Boston and New York. The Yankees came up with $10 million more and landed Clemens. Jeter couldn't have been happier to land the pitcher the Sox said they didn't need.

"He likes these games where there's a lot of attention. He likes pitching in the big games and he likes coming back to Boston to pitch. This win is for us. It has nothing to do with me. We're trying to win games. It really makes no difference what I did. We were winning games on this road trip when I wasn't getting hits, so the bottom line is it feels good to get hits. Every game now at this point in the season is so important for us. Every game there's a little bit more tension. Every time we step out there now, we need to find a way to get it done."

What a ballplayer.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com.