Bleacher Creature Feature

#61: World Series Game 5

23 October 2003

This past week has done nothing to give me warm and fuzzy feelings about out southernmost continental state, let me tell you.

Both Rob Neyer at ESPN.com and Joe Sheehan and BaseballProspectus.com (you need to be a BP Premium subscriber to read Joe's piece) did a phenomenal job of dissecting the disaster that was Game 4, so I urge you to check them out. I agree with pretty much everything they said, particularly the inexcusable use of the bullpen.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would think that Joe Torre threw the game in order to guarantee that the Series would end in New York.

Grady Little has gone on the record as saying he isn't sure he wants to be back managing Boston next year. I'm of two minds, myself. It's hard to blame someone who has won 188 regular-season games the past two years for one stupid decision. On the other hand, he's said that if he had it all to do over again, he'd still leave Pedro Martinez in, which flies in the face of all logic -- and in the way he'd been using both Pedro and the bullpen both during the season and during the earlier parts of the postseason.

All I know is that I have deepest sympathies for anyone who takes that job next year.

Notes on Game 5 as it happens, starting in the bottom of the second inning, as I've been watching the game and doing other things away from the computer for the first inning and a half:

Something happened to David Wells. He was pinch-hit for in the top of the second, and has been replaced by Jose Contreras. Still waiting for Fox to report on precisely what happened, but he's obviously hurt. He was wincing and looked like he was having back problems.

Tonight, both Alfonso Soriano and Jason Giambi are benched. Soriano was planned, Giambi was a late scratch because of his knee. This is for the best, if you ask me. The worst thing that will happen to the Yankees tonight is that they go to New York having to win two at home. If there's any good time to have them out of the lineup, this is as close as we have to it. Plus, with Wells pitching, it's harder to afford the declining infield defense provided by the gimpy Giambi, because hitters put the ball in play against Wells more than they do against high-strikeout pitchers like Clemens and Mussina, and Wells is not at all a good fielder.

Of course, with Contreras in, that idea's shot to hell, but they didn't know that going in.

Speaking of shot to hell, pitcher Brad Penny, of all people, just hit a two-RBI single to give the Marlins a 3-1 lead.

Contreras just gave up his third walk of the inning. This is not good. However, he eventually gets out of it with only three runs which, honestly, is pretty good given his being thrown into the fire like this. Let's hope he just needed a junk inning to get his feet planted.

Aaron Boone, who seems determined to do everything he can to ruin the goodwill he generated last Thursday, just let a Jeff Conine ball go under his glove that he should at least have been able to stop, if not catch.

The score is now 4-1, putting Contreras on the hook for the loss if it stays this way, as he is lifted for pinch-hitter Juan Rivera in the fifth. This wouldn't be so bad, but Rivera grounded out on the first pitch. Contreras could've done that himself.

Wilson just ruined a perfectly good rundown play by throwing the ball away, and what would've been a runner on first with two outs is instead runners on second and third with one out. So the Mike Lowell bloop single that follows makes it 6-1, when it would've been just another runner on base. Wilson then leads off the next inning by popping up on the first pitch.

If Wilson is still a Yankee next year, I will be severely disappointed.

I haven't written this game off yet, mainly because the theme of this entire postseason has been justifying Yogi Berra's "it ain't over till it's over" aphorism, but damn=it's hard to work up any enthusiasm right now.

Sure enough, Johnson and Karim Garcia get a potential rally started. Unfortunately, they're followed by The Utterly Useless Aaron Boone, who pops out, and pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra, last night's hitting hero, who strikes out.

Derek Jeter just came through with a nice single on an 0-2 pitch. Yeah, it's still 6-2, but at this point the Yankees need to whittle away and get into the bullpen, which has been much more vulnerable than the Marlin starters.

On the one hand, leaving Wilson in now is insane. On the other hand, Torre's running out of bench players -- he's already burned Dellucci and Sierra -- and Soriano's been striking out on exactly the types of pitches Penny has been throwing all inning. And Wilson, to his credit, is working the count. It's now 3-2 -- Wilson wisely took twice after three pitches way out of the strike zone -- and Wilson draws a walk. Soriano likely would not have done that.

Now Bernie Williams -- who's 1-2 with a sacrifice fly tonight, .471/.526/.882 in the Series going into tonight, and .328/.397/.500 in the post-season -- is coming up. You like the situation.

You don't like the result. Bernie flies out to right. Dammit.

Wow -- that was the worst rendition of "God Bless America" I've heard all year, and that includes being subjected to Kate Smith's execrable version at Yankee Stadium since April.....

Now Jeff Nelson -- who has owned the Marlins -- is in. All he needs to do is hold them and hope we can scratch out some more runs.

We come now to the ninth. Boone pops out, and I'm wondering if this game is over.

Then Giambi hits a pinch-hit homer, Jeter gets a double, and Wilson -- Wilson! -- gets an RBI double, and suddenly we have a ballgame.

Late-inning drama. The three words that best sum up the 2003 postseason.

Bernie's now up as the tying run with one out and Ugueth Urbina on the mound. He comes within a couple of feet of a home run, but only flies out to Juan Encarnacion in right, which advances Wilson.

And then Matsui makes the final out.

Dammit.

I hasten to add that if Wilson makes that rundown play, it's quite likely that those ninth-inning runs tie the game.

Now we return to New York with our backs to the wall.

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