Rangers Throw One Away as Yankees Win It in 12th

Dean Palmer’s defensive gem snuffed out a Yankee rally in Game 1, but the Texas Ranger third baseman’s Game 2 gaffe breathed life into a Yankee team that was in need of some help earlier Wednesday night.

Palmer’s throwing error on Charlie Hayes’ sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the 12th inning allowed Derek Jeter to score from second, as the Yankees beat the Rangers, 5-4, in front of 57,156 in Yankee Stadium.

The come-from-behind victory evened the division playoff series at one game apiece and restored Yankee hopes as the series shifts to Texas, where the Yankees have won only one of six games this season.

“Tonight was a real charge,” said Yankee Manager Joe Torre, who exhausted both his bench and bullpen. “It was a Game 5, it was a Game 7, whatever you want to call it, that’s how I played it.”

Torre didn’t like his chances of sweeping three games in Texas, and he wasn’t too excited about New York’s position after three innings Wednesday night--Juan Gonzalez’s two homers had given the Rangers a 4-1 lead, and the Rangers were still ahead, 4-2, after six.

But faced with a must-win situation, Torre went right to the elite end of his bullpen, and set-up man Mariano Rivera (2 2/3 hitless innings) and closer John Wetteland (two scoreless innings) responded by shutting out Texas from the seventh through 11th innings.

Jeter led off the 12th with a single to center. Tim Raines walked. And after Jim Henneman replaced Mike Stanton, Hayes got down a perfect bunt toward third. But Palmer, whose diving stop in the first inning Tuesday night saved two runs, threw low and away to first, a toss second baseman Mark McLemore had almost no chance of catching.

“We did everything we could to get even in this game,” Torre said. “Going to Texas down, 2-0 . . . I’m not saying we would have quit, but when you’re this close and you have the bullpen we’ve had all year, I had to go to them.”

One problem: When Rivera and Wetteland were through, the game was still tied, and Torre had to go to left-hander Graeme Lloyd--the only Yankee to be booed by New York fans when players were introduced before Game 1--in the 12th.

Five batters--and three Yankee pitchers--later, the Rangers had the bases loaded with two outs. But right fielder Paul O’Neill made a leaping grab of Palmer’s drive to right, narrowly avoiding a collision with center fielder Bernie Williams, to end the inning.

The Yankee comeback was forged on Cecil Fielder’s home run in the fourth, Hayes’ sacrifice fly in the seventh and Fielder’s RBI single in the eighth, a run that wouldn’t have been possible without Williams’ hustle.

Williams led off the inning with a single and took second on Tino Martinez’s fly ball to deep left. That put Williams in scoring position for Fielder’s hit.

The Rangers built their lead on the strength of Gonzalez, who responded to Tuesday night’s pelting--some Yankee fans tried to hit him with an apple, a bottle and a flask, among other things--by launching a few of his own projectiles into the outfield bleachers.

A leading candidate for the league’s most valuable player honors, Gonzalez lined a solo homer to left in the second inning and added a three-run shot in the third, giving him three homers seven RBIs in the series.

Gonzalez’s first homer, a liner into the shallow left-field corner, was shrouded in controversy, thanks to a guy named Dean Benasillo, a 28-year-old Yankee fan from Brooklyn.

Benasillo, standing in the first row just to the left of the foul pole, reached into fair territory and caught Gonzalez’s drive just above the 318-foot mark. Despite Torre’s objections, left-field umpire Mark Johnson ruled the ball would have left the park regardless of the catch.

Benasillo, wearing a Yankee jersey with Pettitte’s No. 46, screamed at umpires, claiming the ball was foul, but when later questioned by reporters, after realizing a few million New Yorkers probably wanted to wring his neck for interfering with a potential foul ball, he had a change of heart.

“It was fair,” Benasillo said. “I leaned across the foul pole.”

There was no such doubt about Gonzalez’s second homer, a 385-foot blast into the left-field seats that followed Kevin Elster’s double and Rusty Greer’s walk in the third.