YOU probably don’t need more than five fingers to be able to count the number of dramatic pennant races in which the Yankees have been involved throughout their history.
They’ve won, they’ve won pretty much all the time within any sports context, but finishing in first place by at least eight games the way the Yankees have 22 times since moving into the Stadium in 1923 doesn’t leave much elbow room for stretch-drive heroes.
This year, however, the Yankees are running in a race rather than parading to a coronation. It’s no given that postseason October is going to present itself for this year’s Don Larsen or Reggie Jackson or Scott Brosius. Instead, the door is open for regular-season September theatrics, the kind of which mortal franchises would sign up for every opening day even if the one in The Bronx would just as soon pass.
Last year’s final four games were as much a disappointment for Gary Sheffield as for any Yankee. Alex Rodriguez might not have done this and Mariano might not have done that, but Sheffield went 1-for-17 in the final four losses against Boston after going 9-for-13 in the opening three wins. What have you done for us lately, Sheff?
Until last night, in this sprint to the finish, Sheffield lately had been hobbled by a strained left thigh muscle he sustained running after a fly ball in the first inning on Sept. 7. He missed the next four games, then returned as a shadow of the hitter who’d combined with A-Rod to produce the ferocious belly of the beast that is the Yankee batting order.
But last night, still in the DH spot he might be able to escape before this is all over, Sheffield had a night that will be cited when people talk about the Great Race of Ought Five. He uncoiled to bang out three hits including a first-inning double, a second-inning grand slam and an eighth-inning single that accounted for six RBI when the Yankees needed every one of them to stave off the Orioles in a 12-9 game of pure ugly.
“The thing about Sheff is that even if he’s not 100 percent, people still don’t want to pitch to him,” Joe Torre said. “You know the desire and toughness in him is going to find a way to get it done. That’s what we saw [last night].”
Last night, we saw the Yankee strength up and down the lineup that produced 16 hits, but we also saw the pitching weakness that surrendered 18 hits and forced Torre to go to Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning that had begun with Alan Embree on the mound with a 12-7 lead.
Hey, weren’t you paying attention? We said this was a race and not a coronation.
We also saw Sheffield sliding into second on his opening-inning double to left and then saw him plant firmly to get around on James Baldwin’s second-inning change – even in this uncommon season, there’s Baldwin giving up homeruns to the Yanks – and pull it into the lower stands in left.
“I was OK after the slide, and that encouraged me,” said Sheffield, who’d previously been without an extra base hit in his 30 AB’s since the injury. “The next at-bat I was feeling good. You don’t want to go up to the plate with something else on your mind.”
Torre said if Sheffield has to DH the rest of the way, then he’ll live with it because, “he’s so much of a force.” But the Yankees would most certainly benefit if Sheffield could play some right field along the way, so that the manager might be able to give Bernie Williams or Jason Giambi a half-day off as DH as the finish line beckons with hoofs pounding every length.
For this is a race. The way the Yankees run it – those with and without healthy legs-will go a long way to defining them.