Eckersley Has Game 2’s Last Word : Athletics: Bullpen closer stirs emotions when he strikes out old friend Dwight Evans with three consecutive fastballs.

It was a meeting of friends and former teammates, but when it was over there would be a measure of bad blood--at least on the part of Dwight Evans.

It was the eighth inning of Game 2 of the American League playoffs between the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox. It would become a 4-1 Oakland victory, but the lead was only 2-1 when Dennis Eckersley was summoned to face Evans with two on for the Red Sox and two out.

“Dewey and I were once so close that he was a member of my wedding party,” Eckersley would say later. “We’re not as close as we once were, but I still consider him a friend.”

A friend who, at that moment, Eckersley added, represented a pivotal out. “I mean, this is our livelihood,” he said.

The encounter was brief.

Eckersley threw three high fastballs--”high gas,” he called it--and Evans swung and missed each, after which, with his adrenaline pumping, Eckersley hopped off the mound and pumped his fist, as is his custom.

“I really wanted it to come down to that, to that situation, and he beat me,” Evans said with a trace of rancor, “but I don’t appreciate being shown up, and I can’t wait to face him again.”

Shown up? The pumping of his fist?

“I meant no offense,” Eckersley said. “I was psyched.

“If you can’t show emotion in the playoffs, when can you? If he hits a home run (off me), he can jump up and down all he wants.”

Evans did hit a home run off Eckersley last year, a grand slam in Oakland, and Eckersley said he couldn’t sleep that night.

Kirk Gibson hit one of the most memorable home runs in World Series history off him in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1988 Series, and Eckersley didn’t sleep much that night either.

The bullpen closer lives in a do-or-die world of fluctuating emotions. Eckersley, his career revived in the bullpen, has been doing it for three years but still can’t just walk off. Not in the heat of the night.

“It still kills me,” he said of the assignment. “Not like it used to, but it still eats me up.

“I mean, Dewey got upset with me last year, too, when I pumped my fist, but it’s just my emotions exploding. I used to do a lot of silly things, but that’s over. I’m not purposely showing anyone up.”

Maybe he would have a right to.

The 36-year-old right-hander has saved 126 of 143 chances since becoming the A’s closer in 1988.

This year, while the lamentable Boston bullpen was saving 44 games, Eckersley was saving 48 in 50 chances. It was his best year, one of the best by any relief pitcher.

He gave up 41 hits, walked four and allowed five earned runs in 73 1/3 innings for an 0.61 ERA.

“I think it was my best year, but I had a lot more easier saves than I did in ’88 (when he saved 45 games), so maybe that’s why it just looked better,” he said. “I haven’t had many situations like I did in the eighth, so when we got the two (runs) in the ninth it really helped.”

Eckersley worked a flawless home half and has registered eight saves in 11 playoff appearances.

He is, of course, one of the significant differences in a playoff that has seen the Boston bullpen compile an earned-run average of 15.63, and, as the lastest incineration transpired, Eckersley said he sat comfortably in the Boston bullpen, gearing up, trying to forget that he still lives in Boston and still considers Fenway Park a special place.

“All of that just makes it tougher,” he said. “I was trying to stay calm, but I knew I’d be facing Dewey and I was pretty pumped up. I just tried to throw as hard as I could, and when I do that I usually throw high.”

Asked if he regarded Evans as the enemy in that situation, Eckersley shook his head, saying no, but did say: “I thought he looked nervous up there. I saw he was choked up (on the bat). He seemed a little different. Of course, I can say that since I struck him out.”

Evans shook his head as well when he heard the comments of his friend. “I was different at the plate,” he said rhetorically. “That’s good, real good. Like I said before, I can’t wait to face him again.”

It will be a meeting to stir emotions, something to shake a fist about.