ST. PETERSBURG – “Pick me out a good one, Bobby,” says Gary Sheffield. OK, the batboy’s name here isn’t Bobby, but we don’t need Curt Schilling’s bloody sock, or Roy Hobbs’ bloody stomach to build the drama with 19 games remaining. The Yankees are one game out of a playoff spot and Sheffield, already playing with a bad right knee, is limping on a worse left thigh.
Chasing a Johnny Gomes flyball-turned-triple eight days ago, Sheffield pulled up, and missed four games before
returning Monday night here as the DH. After singling in his first at-bat, Sheffield ran to first only about as fast as Joe Torre replies to invitations to Billy Connors testimonial dinners.
“I was scared to go,” Sheffield said. “Once I took off I was OK, then I started to feel it and said ‘that’s as far as I can go.'”
He walked the next two times, only had to go station-to-station to score two runs before Torre used the big lead to get Sheffield into the clubhouse. It might be the last break he gets with no more off days remaining in a season he hopes will be extended yet another three weeks into October.
“I’m being told if I keep working it out, it breaks it up and eventually will get better,” Sheffield said. “From what I felt when I wasn’t able to go get a fly ball, to being able to get around the bases and then come back today, I’m encouraged.
“I’m barely making it around the bases, but there are a lot of slow people in baseball. I don’t thing that’s going to be much of a problem.”
Well it is, even for Sheffield, who has been a No. 3 hitter “all my life.”
He switched with Jason Giambi to bat cleanup this week, but he’s a No. 3 at heart. Torre says you have to weigh everything and it’s still a lightweight decision. You would rather have Matt Lawton (4-for-37 as a Yankee) in the lineup? Or Tony Womack?
Of course, if Sheffield has to DH, the only way to get Bernie Williams’ bat into the lineup is to play him at center. A diving catch on Jorge Cantu Monday night, Williams’ throw-out of Carl Crawford attempting to tag up from first notwithstanding, the longer Williams has to stay out there, the more exposed he and the Yankees, who (gulp) were
playing Ruben Sierra in right last night, will be.
Torre thinks Sheffield will play right again by next week. Meanwhile, he is not slow to acknowledge the baserunning problem, but he would rather have a ponderous Sheffield than no Sheffield at all.
“You keep your fingers crossed in a double play situation,” said Torre. “He’s in there for his bat plus, and by plus I mean a presence that makes everybody around him a little bit better.
“We’re shooting craps here. But today it seems better.”
Or, Sheffield is saying it’s better because that’s what he wants to believe. And what the Yankees want to hear during the month of high expectations and raised pain thresholds.
“(Derek) Jeter in ’03, they were giving him shots for his thumb but he would rather take the pain because he couldn’t feel his hand,” said Torre, asked for guys he has known who can manage pain. “Sheffield, it’s ongoing basis [after] his shoulders last year.
“You have to watch Bernie do the pre-game stuff to appreciate what he does to get on the field. The ones who will tell you how bad it is are the ones who want you to know it. It’s tough to keep a secret in our town and there are guys who won’t own up to [injuries], even to me.
“Tanyon Sturtze tried to pitch through something when he wasn’t the pitcher we need him to be and that wasn’t the right decision. While we appreciated he wanted to be out there, it wasn’t doing him or us any good.”
Bottom line, Sheffield can still do the Yankees good. So, he plays.