As someone who is in his mid-thirties, my first memories of baseball are pretty much all of the 1990s-2000s Yankees’ dynasty. At that age, I pretty much only knew of success, and there was pretty much no game that you could convince me the Yankees were completely out of.
To be fair, when you do stuff like they did 25 years ago today on the road against a fellow future playoff team, it’s hard to dispose that notion.
August 27: Yankees 7, Athletics 5 (box score)
Record: 72-55 (4 GA in AL East)
After the
Yankees left two runners on in the top of the first, Denny Neagle took the mound for the bottom of the inning. It took him just three pitches to get the first out of the game, but he ran into trouble after that. Following a Randy Velarde double, Neagle walked Adam Piatt. Former Yankee Mike Stanley then took Neagle deep, giving Oakland a quick 3-0 lead. The following inning, future Yankee and mustache aficionado Sal Fasano added a second homer for the A’s, that one only a solo shot.
The Yankees then picked up some offense of their own in the third. Gil Heredia issued a walk to Luis Polonia, and the outfielder then stole second and advanced to third thanks to an error when Fasano tried to throw out Polonia. Derek Jeter then dropped in a single, getting the Yankees on the board.
Then in the fourth, Tino Martinez led off with a double and then came around to score on a Jorge Posada single. While Heredia then recorded the next two outs, Posada managed to motor all the way around from first when Clay Bellinger doubled to deep left-center. After the bad first couple innings, the Yankees were back within a run.
Neagle allowed one run more when Piatt hit a solo homer in the fifth. It was hardly a great day, but Neagle did end up going seven innings, allowing five runs on six hits and four walks in 119 pitches. Somehow with that line, he would end up as the winning pitcher of record.
The Yankees still trailed by two as they came to the plate in the top of the eighth. David Justice got things started with a walk, and José Canseco followed that with a single. A bit of luck then came about when center fielder Terrence Long had trouble tracking and then dropped a Tino Martinez fly ball, loading up the bases. While reliever Jim Mecir got Posada to strike out, Luis Sojo hit a grounder to third. Once again, Oakland’s defense let them down, as Eric Chavez made yet another error on the throw. Officially, it was ruled an single plus an error, but either way, it allowed two Yankees to score, tying the game at five. After the A’s intentionally walked Scott Brosius to load the bases, a pinch-hitting Bernie Williams only managed a grounder. However, it only led to a force out at second, as the Athletics couldn’t complete the attempted inning-ending double play, giving the Yankees another run and their first lead of the day.
During that rally, manager Joe Torre made some moves to try and win the game, but left the Yankees in a weird spot. The team was already playing down a man, as they weren’t going to use Paul O’Neill, who was nursing a slight injury. José Vizcaíno had pinch-run for the DH Canseco, and the Yankees then wanted to use Vizcaíno in the field. That meant they would lose the DH. To fit everyone into their defensive alignment with a shortened bench, they sacrificed Glenallen Hill for the newly-needed pitcher’s spot in the batting order. To accommodate that, they had to put Scott Brosius in left field, as Sojo took over in third, with Vizcaíno going from the DH spot to second base.
Torre then send in Dwight Gooden to pitch, but after he got the first two outs, he walked Miguel Tejada. Not wanting to mess around, Torre brought in Mariano Rivera for a four-out save. The first of those outs went by easily as he struck out Matt Stairs on three pitches.
Justice gave Rivera some breathing room when he drove home Jeter with a RBI double in the top of the ninth. (Unlike a memorable turn nine years later, Mo would not need to bat in this one.) With a two-run cushion, Rivera got through the ninth with no issue, throwing a 1-2-3 frame to seal the win.
Just by the way teams use pitchers these day, you’ll hardly ever see lines like Neagle’s again. Teams would never let him go that long struggling the way he was, and he definitely wouldn’t still be around for his offense to rally to get him the win.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.
