Despite Win, a Sense of Too Little, Too Late Lingers in the Bronx

NEW YORK, Aug. 28 -- Had they truly wanted to wake up the echoes, the New York Yankees could have trucked in Bucky Dent to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, or sent their nine fielders to their positions in the top of the first inning carrying hand-held pennants -- one for each consecutive division title the Yankees have won since 1998. The resulting victory would have amped up the electricity at Yankee Stadium even further. But on Tuesday night, there was no use evoking a feeling that wasn't there, and the Yankees and all their fans knew it.

With the Boston Red Sox in town and the baseball season down to its final five weeks, now would typically be the time for the Yankees to make their big move, one that sent them surging past the Red Sox in the standings.

But this time, with the Yankees barely able to glimpse the Red Sox' taillights over the late-summer horizon, even their 5-3 victory over their arch rivals Tuesday night carried a strange air of insignificance, certainly nothing like the late-August whippings of Boston in years past.

For one thing, the victory merely pulled the Yankees within seven games of the first-place Red Sox in the American League East. Truth be told, the Yankees understand that the biggest series of this nine-game homestand is not this one against the Red Sox (80-52), but next week's three-game series against the Seattle Mariners, whom they trail by one game for the wild card.

"I feel real good about our chances, no matter what happens in the next two games," said Yankees left fielder Johnny Damon, whose two-run homer off Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka (13-11) in the seventh inning provided the winning margin and made a winner out of Yankees lefty Andy Pettitte (12-7). "We have a big series coming up against the Mariners. Actually, every game is big for us."

For another thing, despite the win, the Yankees (73-59) couldn't avoid dealing with yet another crisis -- this one the painful-yet-necessary decision, made Tuesday, to yank veteran Mike Mussina out of their starting rotation, with phenom Ian Kennedy due to be called up from Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take Mussina's scheduled turn Saturday.

Even the sellout crowd of 55,037 seemed subdued Tuesday night. In the fifth inning, the traditional jeering of the Red Sox rose up faintly from the vicinity of Section 307, but it quickly died away, and many fans down the right field line returned their attention to the night's most riveting drama -- a squirrel that had managed to strand itself atop the approximately 80-foot-high foul pole, occasionally making a brief reconnaissance mission to the south before scampering back up to its perch and generating ecstatic applause from the crowd.

Could it be that the Yankees have given up hope of catching the Red Sox, whom they play five more times, and focused their energy on the wild card? You won't hear them say so. As Manager Joe Torre frequently reminds reporters, in 1997 he was dressed down by owner George Steinbrenner after conceding the division to the Baltimore Orioles in August and turning the team's attention to the wild card, which it ultimately secured -- the last time the Yankees failed to win their division.

"It's all about getting our record good enough to compete at the end," Torre said before Tuesday's game, "and that's what we're shooting for."

The Yankees, in fact, did have a big move in them -- but it may have come and gone, starting too early and petering out too quickly. They trailed the Red Sox by 14 1/2 games at the end of play on May 29, but had reduced that deficit to four games by Aug. 19.

But as this three-game series dawned, the Red Sox had doubled their lead to eight games -- their largest lead since Aug. 2 -- and despite Tuesday night's loss, they still own the best record in the majors and enjoy the biggest lead of any division leader.

While the pitching-deep Red Sox seemingly deal with no problem bigger than Manny Ramirez's back spasms -- he was pulled out of Tuesday night's game in the seventh inning -- the Yankees faced a huge mess over Mussina, a 247-game winner who suddenly looks like someone in the winter of his career.

On Monday night in Detroit, Mussina suffered his third straight ugly loss -- each of which has seen him allow six or more earned runs -- prompting the New York Post to label him a "$23 million pair of cement shoes dragging down [the Yankees'] October hopes."

But those kinds of words speak to the old Yankee Way, in which the front door -- the division title -- was the only way into October. Now, though, they have discovered there is another way in: the back door, the wild card. And it is suddenly good enough for the Yankees, because it has to be.