The Yankees lose big, but clinch division anyway.
During the regular season, there’s no better feeling than punching your ticket to October. Having taken the first step onto the long road to a championship, it’s a great opportunity to pop some champagne, let loose, and celebrate your accomplishments. Even if you didn’t secure your spot with a win, but because somebody else lost, few things can tamper the joy of this celebration.
Few things, like a sixth straight loss, your 13th in 16 games. Or a 10-run second inning that knocks out your starter and ultimately results in a double-digit defeat.
September 29: Yankees 2, Orioles 13 (box score)
Record: 87-72 (1st in AL East, 3.5 games ahead)
Looking to secure the second 20-win season of his career and snap his team’s five-game losing streak, Andy Pettitte put together one of the worst outings of his career. After a solid first inning in which he struck out the first two batters he faced, the southpaw absolutely lost the zone in the second. He walked the first three batters — Cal Ripken Jr., Melvin Mora, and Chris Richard — to load the bases, throwing 10 straight balls in the process. Brook Fordyce then grounded a two-run single up the middle. Luis Matos followed that up by grounding into a fielder’s choice that brought in another run. A Brady Anderson walk, Pettitte’s fourth of the inning, then put runners on first and second. Four straight singles, off the bats of Jerry Hairstons, Delino DeShields, Albert Belle, and Ripken, respectively, plated four more and chased Pettitte from the ballgame.
Dwight Gooden, on in relief, struck out Mora for the second out of the inning, but then allowed a three-run homer to Richard that completed Pettitte’s line for the day: nine runs on six hits in 1.1 innings, walking four and striking out two. As days at the office go, it wasn’t one to remember.
Down a touchdown and a field goal heading into the top of the third, the floundering Yankees offense had their work cut out for them. For their part, they did scratch across a run in the third, courtesy of a Chuck Knoblauch single, Derek Jeter getting hit by a pitch, and a Bernie Williams liner to left. For much of the game, however, the bats remained in neutral. From the third until the eighth, the Yankees did not record a hit, with the only baserunners coming on a walk and a hit batter; while slick Orioles infield defense did rob them of a couple, they weren’t exactly drilling the ball, either.
Both teams tacked on a couple of extra runs late, with Ripken and Richard homering in the eighth to give Baltimore a 13-1 lead, and the Yankees’ bench rallying against the Orioles’ bench in the ninth to bring the score to its final of 13-2.
Amidst the ninth-inning mini-rally, though, the Baltimore Orioles flashed the out of town scoreboard on the screen, which revealed that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had beaten the Boston Red Sox, 8-6, thus clinching the AL East division title for the Bombers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team seemed uncertain as to how they should react. While winning a division title and securing a playoff berth is always a major accomplishment, earlier in the month, the Yankees had a nine-game lead in the division; it never should have become as close as it had. As Buster Olney wrote in the New York Times, “The Yankees filed sullenly into their clubhouse tonight, champions of the American League East. They didn’t know whether to spray Champagne and hug, or to dress quietly and leave, absorbed by their slump.”
In the end, the vibe wound up celebratory, but with air of unease, as many players celebrated the accomplishment — as Joe Torre noted, for some, this would be their only taste of the postseason — but others remained on the outside, focusing instead on the path up ahead, and how little time the floundering Yankees had to right the ship to defend their title.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.
Category: General Sports
