So this what a $200 million tiara looks like sitting on top of a pig’s head.
While the Yankees’ 12-11, 10-inning victory over the Blue Jays in front of a Yankee Stadium crowd of 54,887 yesterday inched them closer toward playing in October, it was revolting.
Sure, Melky Cabrera’s game-winning hit gave him five RBIs, and he started the defensive play of the game by taking Aaron Hill’s 10th-inning double off the center-field fence with his throwing hand and making a strong throw to Robinson Cano, who threw out the heavy-legged Matt Stairs for the final out and at the plate to keep the score tied.
Sure, Alex Rodriguez went 4-for-5 and drove in three runs. Sure, Hideki Matsui plated three and went over 100 RBIs.
Yet there was so much that went wrong. With Joba Chamberlain idle because of the “Joba Rules” and Luis Vizcaino unavailable because he had worked Friday night, manager Joe Torre played Russian Roulette every time he phoned the pen.
Starting with Phil Hughes and ending with Jeff Karstens, Torre employed a franchise-record 10 pitchers, the majority of whom were appalling.
Hughes let a 1-0 lead slip away in the fourth. Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez flushed a 6-3 advantage in the seventh. Kyle Farnsworth, who said he couldn’t pitch Friday night due to a tight shoulder but said he was OK yesterday, and Kei Igawa combined to give up three runs in the eighth that erased a 9-8 lead.
The win kept the Yankees within 2½ games of the AL East-leading Red Sox, who won last night. It also hiked the Yanks’ wild-card advantage to 5½ over the Tigers, who lost.
“We dodged a bullet tonight,” Torre said. “Ramirez has had two bad games in a row. We need to put an arm around his shoulders to remind him of all the big outs he has gotten for us. Veras came very close to getting out of the inning and it got ugly.”
That leads us to Farnsworth. Before the game, Torre said he didn’t think Farnsworth’s shoulder was up to working yesterday. But there was Farnsworth on the hill when the eighth started. Shortly after giving up three singles, a walk and two runs (he was charged with a third, too), the sold-out crowd smothered Farnsworth in boos as he left the mound.
Igawa looked like the same $46 million bust he was before being banished to the minors when he gave up an RBI single to Hector Luna.
Thanks to Cabrera’s two-run, two-out single in the eighth, Mariano Rivera entered in the ninth. Torre was thinking he had to stabilize the game and get a chance to win it in the ninth against Josh Towers. Rivera did his part, but the Yankees didn’t score until the 10th.
“It was like a heavyweight battle,” said A-Rod, who has a career-high 146 runs and passed Don Mattingly [145 in 1985] for the second-most RBI by a Yankee since 1939.
“I had a feeling that whoever hit last would win the game. I hoped we would have a punch at the end.”
That punch belonged to Cabrera, who started in a 3-for-38 (.079) slide. Jorge Posada (3-for-5) opened with a ground-rule double into the seats along the left-field foul line, and Jason Giambi was intentionally walked. Cano’s fly to left advanced pinch-runner Johnny Damon to third and Giambi to second.
Wilson Betemit fanned on a 0-2 pitch before Cabrera put an end to the five-hour game that was delayed by rain at the start for 90 minutes.
“The win means we are getting closer to our goal of making the playoffs,” Cabrera said. “It was important we battled our butts off.”