Bleacher Creature Feature

16 August 2001

But I was at this game, and it had some seriously weird shit happenin'.....

Bottom of the second inning. Todd Greene leads off against Ryan Rupe, who needed 23 pitches to get through the first inning. He hits a single. Clay Bellinger gets hit by a pitch. Derek Jeter bunts his way to first base, loading the bases for Paul O'Neill with nobody out.

He promptly belts a 2-2 pitch into the upper deck in right field, putting the Yanks -- who had a 3-2 lead thanks to a David Justice three-run blast in the first -- up by 5.

Bottom of the sixth inning. Todd Greene leads off against Ryan Rupe, who has now thrown 97 pitches in five innings. He hits a single. Clay Bellinger gets a walk. Derek Jeter bunts his way to first base, loading the bases for Paul O'Neill with nobody out.

Sadly, real life has no sense of dramatic structure. O'Neill, probably hyper-aware of the situation, flailed at a 1-2 pitch in the dirt for a strikeout. (Level-headed guy that he is, O'Neill took it stoically and walked calmly-- oh hell, I can't keep a straight face -- he cursed and screamed and stomped back to the dugout, like usual.)

Bernie Williams assuaged the peeved Yankee faithful by doubling to The Left-Center Field Formerly Known As Death Valley, then gave the Rays a break by trying to stretch it into a triple and being thrown out by 800 feet.

Then, finally, after throwing 112 pitches in 5.2 innings, Hal McRae finally takes Rupe out.

Here's the difference between Joe Torre and Hal McRae -- or maybe the difference between Mel Stottlemyre and the Rays' pitching coach, or maybe the difference between how much Torre and McRae listen to their pitching coaches. Whatever. The point is, Sterling Hitchcock had only thrown 66 pitches in five innings, and was gone. He's just off arm surgery, Mussina, Pettitte, and Clemens had just pitched three inning munchers (8, 7.1, and 7 innings, respectively), so he let the bullpen get some work by bringing in Mendoza to pitch two amazing innings, Stanton to pitch one to get the taste of Jason Giambi out of his mouth, and Randy Choate to do the ninth. Meanwhile, poor Rupe was getting the crap kicked out of him, but McRae -- no doubt listening to the same space aliens who telepathically told him to let poor Paul Wilson stay in for 130 pitches last week -- left him in there.

Interesting factoid -- the Rays only fouled off two two-strike pitches -- both by Jason Tyner in the same at-bat (which ended with a cheap grounder to second). The Yanks fouled off twelve two-strike pitches. I have no idea if this is significant or not -- though, if nothing else, it contributed to the disparity between Hitchcock's pitch count and Rupe's.

Then, of course, there was the end of the game. Choate did not cover himself in glory in the ninth inning. He showed about as much propensity for throwing strikes as Rick Ankiel in October 2000. Twenty-one pitches later, the bases are loaded with two outs. Torre got him out and brought in Mark Wohlers.

This is where it got really weird. Wohlers threw the first pitch in the dirt. It went to the backstop. Aubrey Huff ran home. Greene threw to Wohlers, covering the plate -- also in the dirt. The ball skipped out to the mound. Felix Martinez ran home. There's nobody at the mound. Luis Sojo runs like a lunatic across half the infield and throws home. Wohlers tags Martinez out, and the game's over.

On one pitch.

One wild pitch.

Giving Wohlers a pitching line of 1/3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 pitch thrown. Oh yeah, and a putout.

Weird weird weird game.

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