This was a great win for Randy Johnson and the Yankees and a tough loss for Tim Wakefield and the Red Sox. Johnson gave the Yankees the game they've been waiting for all season. He gave up one weak chunker of a hit (a Kevin Youkilis fourth-inning flare to left-center) and no runs in seven innings. Wakefield was just as good, and in some ways even better. He gave up three hits in eight innings. He struck out a career-high 12. The difference between the flame-throwing lefthander and the butterfly-tossing righthander was a two-out, first-inning 317-foot fly ball off the bat of Jason Giambi, which just sneaked over the 314-foot sign adjacent to the right-field foul pole. Tough, but that's life in a pennant race.
''He threw me a breaking ball," Giambi said. ''I was just able to get the bat head on it."
A breaking ball?
''He had just fouled off a couple of two-strike knucklers, and I felt maybe he'd roll it over a little," Wakefield said. ''It was not a bad pitch. I didn't hang a curveball. I'm surprised he hit it out. But he's a good hitter, and you've got to tip your hat to him. I've faced him so many times over the years. I thought I'd try something different. It didn't work."
''It was a really good pitch, down and in," confirmed catcher Doug Mirabelli. ''He went out and hooked it to right. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you'll roll that to second base. But as confident and hot as he is right now, that's going to happen."
And with that, Wakefield was locked in for the rest of the afternoon. A knuckleball pitcher could not be better than Wakefield was during innings two through eight.
He gave up two more hits. The first was a third-inning one-out Bubba Crosby shot to right on which Kevin Millar ran an odd pattern that turned a double into a triple. Not to worry. Wake got Derek Jeter looking and Robinson Cano swinging. Three innings later Cano doubled to right, again with one out. And again, not to worry. Wake got Giambi looking and Alex Rodriguez swinging.
