A’s Pack Their Bags, but Aren’t Ready to Pack It In

There was a mixed bag of moods as the Oakland Athletics packed Sunday night for a trip they had no desire to make.

There was the disheartening emotion of having lost a second chance to eliminate the indomitable New York Yankees on home turf while losing their cleanup hitter in the process.

There was also the need to gear up and present a brave front, to insist they are not making another cross-country trip with the idea of folding.

“I don’t think our spirits are down,” said Jason Giambi, the leader of the band. “We pitched two great games and they came back with two great games. Now we’re down to a rubber game, a rematch of Game 1. Hopefully, the results will be the same.”

Mark Mulder outpitched Roger Clemens and his ailing hamstring in that one and now they will go at it again in a decisive Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees having tied this divisional series with a 9-2 victory Sunday in an ugly and interminable game in which Oakland right fielder Jermaine Dye broke a bone in his left leg when he fouled a pitch off it.

For a team that has scored nine runs in four games and is one for 34 with runners in scoring position, the loss of a player who hit 26 homers and drove in 106 runs compounded the blown opportunity to kick the Yankees when they were down, to save themselves from another red eye to the Bronx.

“It’s very disheartening,” A’s center fielder Johnny Damon said, opening that other bag. “We hoped to win last night so that we could chill out for a couple days, but they’re the defending champions for a reason. You can never take them lightly, and I don’t think we did.”

Probably not, but it’s hard to know what to make of the A’s right now.

As baseball’s hottest team over the second half, they finished fourth in the league in scoring but are failing to capitalize against the Yankees.

Dominated by Mike Mussina in Saturday’s shutout, they got eight hits off a struggling Orlando Hernandez and three more off Mike Stanton and Ramiro Mendoza on Sunday but left for New York having scored in only one of the 18 innings at Network Associates Coliseum.

Clemens might not be 100% because of his lingering hamstring ailment, but the A’s will have to face him without Dye protecting Giambi, who is two for 13 and has been selectively walked four times.

“Jason is the best in the league at getting on base, and Jermaine has been an RBI machine behind him,” Damon said.

“We’re going to miss him dearly, but we wouldn’t be where we are if we depended on one guy. We just have to be aggressive against Clemens because we know he’ll come right at us. Hopefully, we can get to him early, and maybe their bullpen is a little tired after the last two games. Tomorrow night, it’s put up or shut up.”

The A’s were in something of a similar position in May and salvaged the season. The Yankees can become the first team to win a five-game series after losing the first two at home, a burdensome legacy for the young A’s

“Look,” said Jeremy Giambi, “we started 8-18 and won 102 games. If that’s not a character check, I don’t know what is. I mean, there’s no question everybody was in shock when Jermaine was carried off, and now he’s in a cast, but we’ve got to find a way to pick up the slack for him.

“We’ve had no problem putting guys on base, we’re just not getting them home, but sometimes you have to tip your cap. The Yankees are making great pitches when they need them.”

After the big games from the Big Three of Mulder, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito, six A’s pitchers gave up 11 hits and six walks Sunday. Cory Lidle, who was 12-2 in his last 15 starts, lasted only 31/3 innings as the Yankees built a 7-2 lead after four.

Ultimately, it would encompass 4 hours 13 minutes of drudgery, the longest nine-inning game in division series history, but the tone was set in the third inning when the Yankees broke the scoreless tie with two unearned runs.

Lidle walked two, and second baseman F.P. Santangelo botched a potential double play when he failed to backhand Paul O’Neill’s grounder.

Yes, this is the same Santangelo who was a media whipping boy during the 2000 season with the Dodgers, the same Santangelo who performed so poorly that the Dodgers decided to release him last March, swallowing the $400,000 he was owed. The small market A’s, always looking for a bargain, freed the Dodgers of half that obligation when they signed him in April, and he has remained consistent.

Santangelo batted .197 in 81 games with the Dodgers last season and he batted .197 in 32 games with the A’s after being recalled on July 31 from triple A.

On Sunday, A’s Manager Art Howe wanted one more left-handed hitter to go against El Duque, and Santangelo got the call.

He would respond with a double in four at bats, but the A’s never recovered from the third-inning error.

“No excuses,” Santangelo said. “I didn’t lose the ball in the sun or slip on a rock. You have to make big plays in big games, and I botched it. I should have got in front of it instead of trying to backhand it.”

Santangelo stood tall, answering the same questions from waves of reporters, reminding them that there are reasons the Yankees have all that “World Series jewelry” but “you’ve got to have a short memory in this game and we have to turn the page. We’ve got to be ready in the Bronx. Our season comes down to this game.”

Strange the way it works.

At this point, with the Yankees having shown their mettle by coming back from those first two losses to preserve their bid for a fourth consecutive World Series title, “it’s almost as if they have nothing to lose,” Damon said, “and all the pressure is on us. I mean, as the team a lot of people picked to knock them off, the team that had that chance the last two games, it will be a big disappointment if we lose.”

A disappointment they will try to avoid with their cleanup hitter at home in California.

Dye is in a cast, but is the die cast?

“It hurts going forward,” General Manager Billy Beane said of the injury, “but as it applies to [tonight], the guy toeing the mound will set the tone.

“We won behind Mulder in Game 1, and I have to think it will come down to the best starting pitching performance, not the best right field performance.”