10 INNINGS
A’s 3
Yanks 2
OAKLAND – The Yankees needed a bat swung by swollen biceps. The Yankees needed more bullpen help. The Yankees needed to do better in the trade market than the Red Sox.
Last night, the Yankees were OK for most of the evening without answering the voices who criticized them for not adding more than Aaron Boone, David Dellucci, Armando Benitez and Jesse Orosco to their club. That’s because their starting pitching, an area Joe Torre will go to the grave believing separates great teams from good ones, was sensational.
However, they couldn’t overcome a colossal error by Alfonso Soriano in the eighth and suffered a heartbreaking 3-2 loss when Miguel Tejada hit a game-winning homer in the bottom of the 10th off Antonio Osuna with two outs and the count 1-2.
Tejada’s blast was witnessed by 41,407 and shattered the Yankees’ three-game losing streak. It also kept them 3½ games ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East after the Red Sox were beaten by Baltimore.
Aaron Boone went 1-for-4 in his first game as a Yankee, striking out twice.
The fateful 10th started innocently when Osuna retired Mark Ellis on a pop to Soriano and fanned Scott Hatteberg looking. Osuna got ahead of Tejada, the reigning AL MVP, 1-2, before the shortstop crushed a ball over the left-field fence.
Coming into the game Yankee starters were 2-0 with a 1.48 ERA in the previous four starts and Mike Mussina did nothing to damage those glittering numbers. In seven innings, he allowed one run, four hits, walked one and fanned nine. Only because of a crucial error by Soriano in the eighth Mussina wasn’t the winner. So, in five games Yankee starters are 2-0 with a 1.45 ERA.
Torre hooked Mussina after seven innings and 98 pitches and brought in Orosco. He fanned Terrence Long and was replaced by Armando Benitez, who fanned pinch-hitter Billy McMillon for the second out. Ellis kept the inning alive with a single to left and Benitez added spice to the pot by walking Hatteberg on a 3-1 pitch that almost went to the backstop.
Torre opted for Mariano Rivera and he shattered Tejada’s bat on a grounder to Soriano that he allowed to eat him up and glance off his glove as Ellis raced home from second to tie the score, 2-2. Rivera kept it knotted by getting Erubiel Durazo on a pop to short off another broken bat but was charged with his third blown save in 23 chances.
Dellucci, who was obtained from Arizona when Raul Mondesi was jettisoned on Tuesday, went 2-for-4 and scored twice in his second Yankee start. Derek Jeter had an RBI double.
Tim Hudson had to believe the baseball gods were looking someplace else besides the East Bay during the fifth inning when the Yankees scored a tainted run and took a 2-1 lead.
Dellucci opened with a single and was bunted to second by Derek Jeter. Hudson stalled the threat by slipping an 0-2 pitch past Bernie Williams for the second out. Hudson’s first pitch to Jason Giambi was a ball and the decision was made to issue the next three balls intentionally and let the righty attack Jorge Posada.
At 1-1 against Posada, Hudson thought he had thrown a strike on the outside corner to get the count in his favor but homeplate ump Paul Schrieber called it a ball. Then, at 2-1, Posada grounded a single to right that the newly-acquired and strong-armed Jose Guillen fielded.
Guillen’s perfect throw carried to the plate on a line and well ahead of a scampering Dellucci, but catcher Ramon Hernandez was standing in front of the plate when he caught the ball and never even attempted a swipe tag on a sliding Dellucci. Had Hernandez been blocking the plate like he was supposed to, Dellucci would have been an easy out.
Hudson avoided further trouble by retiring Hideki Matsui on a grounder to short.
The first of Dellucci’s consecutive singles came with one out in the third and helped the Yankees tie the score, 1-1. With Jeter at the plate, Dellucci swiped second. He scored when Jeter drove a 3-2 pitch into the left-center field gap. Jeter advanced to third on Williams’ grounder to the right side and watched Hudson graze Giambi’s right arm with a 1-1 pitch. Hudson’s first three pitches to Posada were out of the strike zone, but at 3-2, Posada popped up to kill the threat.