Forget the Big Picture. Forget the home field in October. Forget worrying about who will have to face the Rangers, if it even is the Rangers. You can even forget the little matter of who’s now in first place, and who’s in second.
The Yankees needed a win against the Red Sox. Period.
“That was a big win,’’ said Yankees skipper Joe Girardi. “To come from behind with [Jon] Lester dealing, to scratch out some runs, to take some walks … that was a big win for us.’’
The Yankees had come into Fenway tied with the Red Sox at 68-42. But you think the fact they had gone 1-8 vs. their prime rival in those long-ago games didn’t annoy them? With any kind of reasonable split they would have come here in first place, free and clear. Up three, at least. Maybe four.
So this 3-2 series-opening victory did mean a lot to them.
The Yankees now have won eight straight, and 11 of 13. They are on an official roll, which means they are winning games every which way, whether it’s 17-7, 17-3 or 18-7 (actual scores), or a game like last night’s squeaker, when they made do with five hits, conveniently bunching three of them in a three-run sixth inning that made a loser out of a man who had begun the game by throwing strikes on his first seven pitches and 13 of his first 15.
And the fact that the rally began with the No. 9 man in the batting order drawing a nine-pitch leadoff walk wasn’t lost on anyone, least of all MVP candidate Curtis Granderson, who had pointed out before the game that the best thing about the current streak was the breadth of team contributions.
Walking leadoff men is seldom a good idea, and walking a No. 9 man to lead off an inning is even worse, since it makes the top of the order even more menacing. But Eduardo Nunez, who will be sitting down the instant Alex Rodriguez is declared fit to play, did work Lester for that walk in the sixth inning.
Derek Jeter singled to center. Granderson, who has become a fearsome RBI man, punched one to left-center for his 86th ribbie of the season. Mark Teixeira walked to load ’em up with no one out. Robinson Cano hit into a 4-6-3 double play, but Lester’s nice little 2-0 lead was gone as Jeter scored the tying run. He still had a chance to escape the inning with the score tied at 2, but Nick Swisher, who had a sizzling July (.902 OPS), before hitting a little speed bump of late, drove in his first run in six games with a weird ground-rule double down the third base line, a ball that couldn’t have carried much more than 130 feet.
But when you’re team is hot, you’re team is hot, and that ground-rule double was the game-winning RBI.
Of course, it coulda/shoulda/woulda been a lot bigger deficit than 2-0.
