Drained Yankees Are Well Spent

The next crisis is an at-bat away, or a headline away.

It’s what makes the Yankees’ clubhouse an interesting place, where you turn the corner and find Reggie Jackson on a knee, talking Alex Rodriguez through two series -- one in Seattle, the other in Anaheim -- in which he had two hits and 14 strikeouts in 20 at-bats.

Jackson gestures and Rodriguez nods and Jackson gestures some more. One day John Wooden, the next Reggie Jackson, and at this rate Rodriguez will have a swing thought for every one of those pitches he misses, and he’s about to set a new career high for strikeouts.

When Jackson had moved on, Rodriguez forced a smile and said, “I’m very proud of the way this team played. I wish I could have been more a part of it.... You’ve got to keep going. You can’t really concern yourself with what I’m doing personally.”

They’d just beaten the Angels in a fight-to-the-ninth struggle that had started with an eight-run lead, and if only it had all begun on this brilliant Sunday afternoon here. What A-Rod and the Yankees finished was 21 games in 20 days, the last 11 of which you might recall commenced in Boston and with the five-game sweep that set Red Sox Nation afire.

As Derek Jeter grabbed his duffel bag, Johnny Damon his sunglasses, Bernie Williams his guitar case and Rodriguez his psyche, the Yankees had gained 4 1/2 games in the American League East over nearly three weeks, though they’d won only 11 times.

The early goal was to win a lot of games, and somewhere along the way that changed to simple survival, and by game time Sunday they’d pretty much lost two more players, first baseman Jason Giambi to dehydration and left fielder Melky Cabrera to a pounding toothache.

Giambi, who’d taken a couple liters out of an IV bag Saturday, and Cabrera, who’s got an appointment for a root canal waiting in New York, both played in the ninth inning Sunday, which was about all they had to offer.

It wasn’t any better for the Red Sox in Seattle, where they attempted to fend off a Mariners sweep without Manny Ramirez, and with Mark Loretta at first base, Dustin Pedroia at second, Alex Cora at shortstop, Javy Lopez at catcher, Kevin Youkilis in left field and Kyle Snyder pitching. It didn’t work, of course, so the Red Sox fell 6 1/2 games behind, and while the Yankees boarded a flight to New York and an off day today, the Red Sox were bound for Oakland and three more road games.

Having won those five against the Red Sox and then one each against the Mariners and Angels, Yankees Manager Joe Torre said that, given their 7-4 record on the trip, “we won the games we would have chosen to win.... We used up a lot in those first five games.”

They headed East, where they will play host to the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins for the week, which wouldn’t otherwise feel like such a good thing. But the grind they’d just run through made the long trip home reassuring, and Sunday’s game every bit worth the effort.

“We needed that,” Torre said. “Emotionally and physically, they’re tired. This was a long run.”

It always is with the Yankees. Their hitters see a lot of pitches, and their pitchers throw their share, so by the end everybody’s bloodied and wiping sweat from their eyes. Win or lose, nobody gets out fresh.

This was precisely Angels starter Joe Saunders’ quandary. He had to throw strikes to the Yankees to survive. But every time he did, somebody hit a ball off a wall or over it. He didn’t last the third inning.

There was an era in which the Yankees were as much Bernie Williams’ as anyone else’s, and in that time -- 1998 in particular -- he hit in the middle of a lineup that worked pitchers like this. You went to a Yankees game, you brought a meal and a snack and a lot of patience.

Williams, though, will be 38 in three weeks. He is a liability in the outfield -- Cabrera replaced him with one out and the Angels closing in the eighth inning Sunday -- and usually bats out of the production spots. Sunday, it was seventh. He’s there because Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield and Cabrera weren’t. In fact, when the Yankees traded for outfielder Bobby Abreu four weeks ago, Williams asked Torre what that meant for him. According to Williams, “He didn’t beat around the bush. He said, ‘Well, you’re not going to play.’ ”

With Cabrera ailing and Robinson Cano too wrung out to do anything but DH, Williams stood out in left field, and in between homered twice, doubled, singled and drove in six runs. By the end, large pockets of Yankees fans at Angel Stadium banded together for a resounding standing ovation, and they chanted his name from the left-field foul pole.

“It’s very funny to be 3,000 miles away from New York and hear that,” he said. “It feels kind of weird, but it’s great.”

The best news of all, they weren’t going to be 3,000 miles away from New York for much longer.

“It’s been good enough, I guess, so far,” Jeter said. “We came through it.”