"Stray Rod this," he said, as he deposited that Papelbon pitch into the Red Sox bullpen to give the Yankees a 6-5 victory over the Red Sox last night. No, make that earlier today, the game needing 4 hours and 4 minutes to complete its rather amazing business.
"It's got to take some of the sting out of it [the bad press], I would think," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "Obviously, when you're dealing with a personal situation it's more that just a game at that point in time. He's had to put it off to the side and play the game. It's not easy to do."
The Big Picture significance may be nil as far as the American League East is concerned, but for the Yankees every win is vital if they are to have any hope of clawing their way into the postseason. "It was a big win for us," said general manager Brian Cashman. "Right now every win is big for us. We're not worried about Boston. We're only worried about us."
But it was Boston, and it had to be as satisfying as anything that's happened to the Yankees during this disappointing season. For in order to pull this one out they had to score twice against a Boston bullpen that has been one of the team's great strengths. The Yankees tied the game with a run off Hideki Okajima in the eighth and they won it with A-Rod's dramatic, stadium-silencing blast off Papelbon in the ninth, and that had to make for a pleasant trip home for the beleaguered Yankees.
By the time the Red Sox see the Yankees again, they will have played more than 130 games, weather permitting, and who knows what will have happened by then? But there won't be many games with more drama or more twists and turns than this one.
Consider what took place in the last two innings.
1. Asked to protect a 5-4 lead, Okajima gave up a leadoff two-strike single to countryman Hideki Matsui and then surrendered a booming triple to right-center off the bat of Robinson Cano. "He killed that ball into the wind," said Torre.
