THE GAME was a fair representation of the Yankees’ season: They didn’t play so crisply early. Jorge Posada made like an impending All-Star when it counted. The Yankees win! The-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e Yankees win!
And the cloud of doubt lingers, not erased by the Yankees 13-5 win over the Mets in front of 55,839 at the Stadium yesterday.
Yes, the Yankees feel great about the way their youngish catcher is developing. No, the Yankees don’t have the look of a team primed for a run-away-and-hide division title.
The three-run home run Posada muscled into the right field upper deck off Mets reliever Pat Mahomes broke a 5-5 tie in the fifth, served to relax Andy Pettitte, and evened the Subway Series heading into tonight’s finale.
Posada’s ability to adapt to daily duty behind the plate, one of the preseason questions, no longer is an issue. The same can’t be said of the man Posada catches tonight.
David Cone pitches for more than a Subway Series-swinging victory, when he is opposed by Mike Hampton, the man under the microscope back in April.
Cone will battle the Mets and the Grim Reaper of baseball careers.
By delivering the hit of the game, Posada took pressure off more than Pettitte, who was able to relax and let his talent take over once the Yankees took an 8-5 lead with a five-run, two-out rally in the fifth.
If only slightly, Posada, Pettitte, Paul O’Neill, Derek Jeter, Tino Martinez and Shane Spencer, lessened the heat on Cone tonight. A loss yesterday would have meant Cone pitching to avoid a sweep tonight.
“I know David Cone is going to have a good game,” Posada said. “I’m very confident he’s going to turn it around.”
That is how far Posada has come in a year. He has gone from the guy around whom teammates rallied to one of the Yankees rallying around Cone.
Posada’s the sure thing now, Cone the center of concern. It wasn’t that way a year ago, when Posada chased all those passed balls eating at his psyche early in the season.
“He’s very emotional,” Torre said of Posada. “He was down quite often. I had a lot of talks with him. So did Gary Tuck, my catching instructor at the time, and so did Joe Girardi. A lot of guys were part counselor, part confessor for Jorge.”
Now Posada’s sending opposing pitchers into counseling. He leads the American League in on-base percentage. He’s hitting .326 with 12 home runs and 31 RBIs.
On the day after Mike Piazza lit up the night with a grand slam, Posada showed there is more than one catcher in New York with sock in his bat.
Posada broke into laughter.
“I can’t compare myself to Piazza,” he said.
And he can’t compare himself to Ivan Rodriguez. Remove those two catchers from the equation and let the comparisons begin.
Posada bats sixth, a nice place for him in the order. “That’s a good lineup we’ve got out there,” Posada said. “You get through Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill, and I’m kind of like the sleeper out there.”
The Yankees could use a sleeper to emerge to awaken their rotation. Until that happens, they will stay in the pack, right there with the Red Sox and the White Sox, the Indians and maybe the Blue Jays.
If the Yankees lost yesterday’s game, the word panic would have been spread all over the newspaper. Steinbrenner’s panic the Yankees can handle. They are accustomed to it. It’s the forces that cause the losses, not the reactions to them, that could make the Yankees sweat.
“As far as worrying about what George will say, losing is enough of a torture without concerning ourselves with the what happens after the losing,” Torre said. “That, we’ve been pretty good about.”
Posada has been one of the consistent winning forces. Yesterday, he went 2 for 5, homered, doubled, drove in three runs and sweated through nine innings behind the plate.
Batting from the other side as his home run, Posada later doubled off Mets lefty reliever Rich Rodriguez. By then, the extra-base hit wasn’t needed for the Yankees to win the game. It did add to an ever-growing All-Star resume.
At this rate, Torre will have a difficult time giving Posada the rest he might like to see him get during the All-Star break. No sweat, Torre would prefer to see the smile on Posada’s face should Torre have good news to break to him later this month.
Posada isn’t high on rest, having gotten more of it than he desired during his one season as Joe Girardi’s backup and two seasons as the man who received roughly 60 percent of the playing time behind the plate to Girardi’s 40 percent. Posada has started 51 of the Yankees’ 57 games.
Tonight will make 52 of 58, the biggest of all 52 because of whom he is catching and when he is catching him.