ANALYSIS : Red Sox, Yankees Don’t Have Fighting Spirit

While Baltimore, Milwaukee and Toronto fight for the American League East championship, Boston and New York are fighting for air.

The Red Sox and Yankees are having the oxygen squeezed out of their title hopes by lack of pitching. Neither has enough at this moment to make a fight of it.

The shortage is particularly telling for Boston. With a couple more strong and clever arms, Joe Morgan’s team would have the goods to make a strong run at the top three teams.

Bucky Dent’s Yankees don’t appear to have enough pop in the lineup to make the leaders nervous even if they had people who could rifle it in there and get the other guys out.

The Red Sox had lost eight of nine games as they entered Tuesday night’s game against the Yankees’ Greg Cadaret. Morgan’s answer to Cadaret was Wes Gardner, a right-hander with a 3-7 record and 6.28 ERA. Awful.

Moreover, lefty Tom Bolton had been scheduled to face the Yankees in the finale of the three-game series Wednesday night. Bolton is 0-4 and 8.31. (Quick, dial 911. Tell them to hurry it up with the oxygen tank.)

But Bolton’s chance to redeem himself by possibly putting forth a strong showing Wednesday night was postponed by Manager Joe Morgan when Mike Boddicker was reported ready to go.

While not on the disabled list, Boddicker (10-9, 4.04) had been slowed by little hurts that are likely to become big injuries unless they are rested. The Red Sox return home Friday for a doubleheader with the Tigers.

“Let’s see,” Morgan said before Tuesday’s game. “It’ll be Boddicker tomorrow night, off-day Thursday and then (Mike) Smithson and either Bolton or possibly Hetzel Friday. After that it’s whoever follows who in this crazy pitching rotation of ours.”

Roger Clemens (12-9), who is Morgan’s best pitcher and one of the best in the game, is having a so-so year despite ranking second in the league in strikeouts behind Nolan Ryan of Texas. Some say the Rocket has a bad shoulder, some say back. Others say nonsense, he’s just not himself this year.

In any case, the Yankee lineup of banjo hitters knocked the big Texan around Monday night, twanging eight hits that were good for five runs as Bucky Dent gained his first victory as a Yankee field manager.

Clemens had two strikeouts in 7-plus innings, raising his total to 167, paltry compared with past seasons and Ryan’s achievements. Clemens wasn’t bringing heat, he was bringing warmth.

With Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd, John Dopson and rookie Eric Hetzel rehibilitating their injured throwing arms in Pawtucket, R.I., Morgan has been forced to resort to Bolton, Gardner and Smithson (6-12, 4.76), who has started 15 games and relieved in 19.

There is no time for this sort of thing with only 39 games left in the season. Injuries happen, but the teams most successful at avoiding them are the ones who play ball in October. Others watch.

“Dopson needs another one (start) in Pawtucket,” Morgan said. “But Hetzel may be ready. If he can crank it like he did down there, he’ll be OK for us.”

When Bolton was called up Aug. 3, he pitched 8-plus innings in his first start against Cleveland at Fenway. Even though he lost 4-2, it was a hopeful story, the slim kid coming in to bolster the hurting staff.

He has had a lot of luck since then. It’s all been bad. Six runs in four innings against Kansas City, a tough ride on the wings of the Orioles and then, an old-fashioned hammering in only 1-plus innings against Milwaukee.

“Every game I’m in is critical for me now,” he said. “I’ve got to make them count.”

Around the everyday lineup, the Red Sox are solid gold. First baseman Nick Esasky has had a fine season so far, leading the Red Sox in homers (23) and RBI (81). The others, around the horn and across the outfield, have held up their end, too. Though none of the regulars are having sensational seasons, Wade Boggs is leading the league in batting, as usual, and Mike Greenwell has struck a nice balance with his numbers, .305 average, 13 homers, 70 RBI.

But pitching is everything, and the Red Sox haven’t got it.

Shaky pitching also is one of the reasons the Red Sox-Yankees series lacks the usual flair and spark. Right now, the standings show, they are a couple of bad teams, both far below .500.

It is a strange, unnatural atmosphere for such a long-standing rivalry. One or the other (mostly the Red Sox in recent years) is usually in the fight for the East title. The Red Sox won it last year.

In 1978, the Yankees were 8 1/2 games out on this date. They rallied to overtake Don Zimmer’s Red Sox and eventually win the title on Dent’s three-run homer at Fenway.

It would be fun just to know one or the other could do the big rally thing in 1989. No way. The Yankees don’t have the right equipment in any department, and the Red Sox haven’t got the pitching.

Don Zimmer is still working, by the way, in the other league. And on this day he is fighting hard to keep his first-place Chicago Cubs in front of the Mets and other National League East challengers. Things change, but not much.