Heartbeat in the Bronx

For three innings it looked like more of the same – more futility piling up near the Yankee dugout, the priciest players in the game getting stomped by a bunch of talented young guys from Cleveland. Roger Clemens looked every day of forty-five as he limped from the mound after only 2 1/3 innings and his team trailing 0-3. It didn’t look promising when Derek Jeter grounded into double plays in the first and third innings. In fact, the Bronx night wore the aspect of a funeral.

Before the game Yankee owner George Steinbrenner laid down the gauntlet: win this game and this series or Joe Torre is gone. When the clutch Indians scored their twelfth run of the series with two-out, the chances of Torre ever wearing a Yankee uniform again seemed remote.

Prior to the fifth inning, the heart of the Yankee line-up was a collective one for twenty-four at the plate. This potent team that scored 968 regular season runs and smacked more than 200 homers, was locked down, unable to string two consecutive hits together. It was like 2003 when the Yankees offense sputtered against Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano and the Florida Marlins. To make sure the team never found itself shut down in a play-off series again, the Yanks went after and signed Alex Rodriguez in 2004, but the post-season has been cruel to A-Rod, transforming him from September stud to October dud.

Thanks to the baseball Gods for young Phil Hughes, who came on in relief of Clemens and mixed in a sharp curve ball with 90-plus MPH heat. While Hughes kept the Indians at bay, the Yankee offense finally got out of first gear. The ever-steady Hideki Matsui showed the boys how to take the ball to the opposite field, Cano sliced a double into the left-field corner, Melky Cabrera drove a run home, and Johnny Damon hit a pop-fly homer to right to give the Yankees the lead.

Are the big bats coming out of their slumber? Did the Yankees find the mojo hidden at the base of Babe Ruth’s plaque in Monument Park? And who will get the baseball from Torre for tonight’s do-or-die Game 4? Who does Torre turn to to keep the Yankees in the game until the offense can do its thing once more?

The fat lady may not be singing in full throat, but she is warming in the wings.