Pressure Doesn’t Faze This Rookie

Game 5? The division series on the line? A trip to the American League’s championship series at stake?

Big deal.

“I want to be the guy out there,” 21-year-old rookie Jaret Wright said Sunday after the Cleveland Indians provided him the chance by ralling for a 3-2 victory over the New York Yankees to force tonight’s fifth and decisive game.

Wright will face Andy Pettitte in a rematch of Game 2 in which the Indians gained a split at Yankee Stadium as the young right-hander pitched five shutout innings after battling his nerves in a three-run Yankee first.

“The chance to pitch the deciding game is what kids grow up dreaming about,” Wright said. “There’ll probably be millions of kids out there watching me and wishing they could trade places. If I didn’t want to pitch this game, there would be something wrong with me.”

Recalled in June after starting the year at double A, Wright stepped into the Indians’ injury breach and possibly saved their season, going 8-3 overall and 7-0 in games he started after the Indians had lost. Both he and Pettitte will be starting on three days’ rest, but Wright, who was the Indians’ No. 1 draft choice in 1994 out of Anaheim’s Katella High, said he didn’t think that would be a problem.

“I’ll also be a lot more comfortable and familiar with the environment here than I was in Yankee Stadium,” he said. “That was entirely new.”

Said Manager Mike Hargrove: “To do what he did in the regular season and to do what he did in Game 2. . .well, he’s a special kid.”

TONIGHT’S GAME

NEW YORK’S ANDY PETTITTE

(18-7, 2.88)

vs.

CLEVELAND’S JARET WRIGHT

(8-3, 4.38)

Jacobs Field, 5 p.m.

TV: Channel 11.

* Update--The Indians would like to find a way to get Manny Ramirez (two for 17) and Matt Williams (two for 14) going, as the Yankees would like to do with Bernie Williams (one for 13).

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SERIES AT A GLANCE

(Series tied, 2-2)

* Game 1: New York 8, Cleveland 6

* Game 2: Cleveland 7, New York 5

* Game 3: New York 6, Cleveland 1

* Game 4: Cleveland 3, New York 2

* Game 5: At Cleveland, tonight