Yankees Head North With Modest Streak, Ambitious Goals

After overcoming a four-run deficit Wednesday in their 5-4 victory over the Brewers, the New York Yankees will take aim at another deficit. This one is even larger. The Yankees’ focus is now a little farther north -- geographically and in the standings.

Toronto, here they come. Whether the Yankees can get out of last place is another question. They trail the sixth-place Baltimore Orioles by six games.

At least the 23-40 Yankees proved here that comebacks are in their repertoire. For the second time in 36 tries, they won a game they were losing after seven innings. Yes, they demonstrated that a four-run deficit is not insurmountable. A pair of two-run rallies, followed by Roberto Kelly’s high and shallow home run with two out in the ninth, were enough to conquer the fifth-place Brewers for the second consecutive game.

The Yankees arrived Wednesday night in Toronto, where there is an opportunity to erase the embarrassment of their lost weekend and perhaps move a little closer to the first-place Blue Jays.

“It’s definitely an opportunity,” Don Mattingly said. “I don’t think we can go in there and realistically think sweep. It’s definitely an opportunity to get hurt. If we play like we did against them at home, we could get hurt.”

Obviously, realism has not been lost. One exciting victory full of clutch hits and a two-game winning streak may be a confidence boost, but looking at the standings, which show them 13 1/2 games behind, still sobers them. Wednesday’s game could have only helped, however. After the Brewers took a 4-0 lead against Jimmy Jones in the third inning, the Yankees used two-run innings in the fourth and eighth to put Kelly into position to become a hero.

Kelly was not thinking home run -- not even after he hit reliever Chuck Crim’s high-and-away fastball toward the right-field corner. “I thought it was just a deep fly ball,” Kelly said.

But Rob Deer kept drifting into the corner. Finally, he ran out of room and the ball landed just over him. It was Kelly’s third home run this year and his first since moving into the leadoff role 10 days earlier.

“It’s great coming back the way we did today,” Kelly said. “It’s a good sign we haven’t given up. I don’t think we can come to the park thinking things are hopeless.”

Jesse Barfield said, “We’ve got a lot of teams to jump over but we’re not out of it until it’s over. It’s a big win for us. We don’t want to go into Toronto down. They’re playing good ball and they embarrassed us last time.”

The Yankees’ confidence was a little higher against the 30-34 Brewers, losers of 20 of their past 28 games. “There was no way they were going to beat us -- this is what we were saying up and down the bench,” said Stump Merrill, now 5-9 as manager.

No, but the Brewers nearly tied it against Lee Guetterman in the ninth. With one out, Jim Gantner singled. Merrill went to the mound but stayed with Guetterman. “I wanted a ground ball,” Merrill explained.

What he got was controversy. On the pitch Guetterman (4-2) struck out Dale Sveum for the second out, pinch runner Darryl Hamilton stole second. Barely. Second-base umpire Tim McClelland received an animated argument from Steve Sax, who thought he applied the tag in time, as well as from shortstop Wayne Tolleson and Merrill.

“It was more emotion than anything,” Tolleson said. “We ain’t been on the right side of too many (calls).”

The Yankees got a reprieve when Sax neatly scooped up Gary Sheffield’s grounder to his left. Wait a minute. The grass was wet. “When Sax slipped,” Merrill said, “my heart went to my mouth.”

Still, Sax regained his balance in time to get Sheffield by a step. As for the Yankees, it was only a second step on a journey with 99 games to go.