Coming off a series loss to Cleveland, including a one-hit shutout at the hands of Bartolo Colón in the finale, it wasn’t quite a five-alarm fire in New York yet. Sure, the Yankees had looked awful in Cleveland, outscored 31-11, but a stretch of four losses in five games had only reduced their AL East to seven games. With 14 games to go, the Yankees were in no trouble, and still just had to focus on keeping things tight and sorting out the edges of their playoff roster.
But after a trip to Toronto
started with another horrendous loss, a few more alarms may have started to go off.
September 19: Yankees 3, Blue Jays 16 (box score)
Record: 85-64 (6.0 GA in AL East)
This should have been a promising matchup for the Yankees; David Wells was scratched, forcing Steve Trachsel, who’d struggled mightily after a midseason trade to the Blue Jays, in at the last minute. Trachsel was opposed by Andy Pettitte, closing in on 20 wins on the year.
But Pettitte had next to nothing, laboring through five innings without striking out a batter. Making matters worse, his defense put on a woeful showing. Chuck Knoblauch fired low to Tino Martinez on a first-inning grounder, and Martinez came up empty for an E3. Carlos Delgado followed with a fly ball to left that Luis Polonia missed, gifting Toronto a 1-0 lead.
The Yankees hung in there early. Glenallen Hill hit a solo homer in the second to tie the game at one, and after Pettitte allowed two more on a Dave Martinez single in third, David Justice responded with a solo homer in the fourth to cut the deficit to 3-2.
But they soon collapsed. In the fifth, Pettitte’s defense failed him again. With runners on second and third and two down and one already in, Scott Brosius booted a groundball, and Toronto led 5-2:
Pettitte came out for the sixth and was quickly chased, after a double, a walk, and a Darrin Fletcher RBI single. Jason Grimsley came on and only added to the sloppiness, uncorking a wild pitch that allowed Fletcher to score and make it 7-2.
After a couple of early homers, the Yankees went silent against Trachsel. The veteran righty worked 1-2-3 innings in the fifth, sixth, and seventh, ultimately tossing 7.1 innings of three-run ball. All the while, Trachsel’s offense ran up the score on the Yankee bullpen. Ted Lilly, a rookie auditioning for a playoff roster spot as a bullpen lefty, flopped, allowing a double, a home run, a single, and a double to the four batters he faced before being pulled for Jay Tessmer. Tessmer allowed the runner inherited from Lilly to score, and it was 11-2.
Things got even uglier in the eighth. Randy Choate came up and let the first three batters reach, before giving way to Craig Dingman. Dingman allowed singles to the first four batters he faced, and the Jays had a 16-3 lead before the Yankees could even record an out in the eighth. At last, Dingman induced a lineout and a double-play groundball to mercifully end things there.
There were no silver linings for a fuming Joe Torre in a laugher like this. “It was just bad,” Torre said. ”It was just ugly, really ugly. We have to do something about it. It was terrible, manager, coaches, players.” Derek Jeter added “We’re playing terrible, and that’s the bottom line. We’re not hitting, we’re not pitching, we’re not playing defense.”
Perhaps the comfort of a large division lead allowed the Yankees to ease off the gas pedal. One would think that a 13-run embarrassment would be enough to jolt them to attention, but as we’ll see, the Yankees’ September swoon was just beginning.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.
