The Comeback

Unbelievable comeback, stemming from the difference between the Red Sox's top relievers early in the season vs. how they're pitching now. April and May, Dice-K was circumnavigating 6 innings against the Yankees, running up the pitch count, constantly being in trouble, but getting away relatively unscathed. His high pitch counts in games at the beginning of the seasonal marathon drastically affected his endurance over the full season.

Ditto for the arms of Okajima and Papelbon, who were the unhittable combination that made the game literally a 7 inning affair in the teams' first meetings. The drastic difference in Japanese baseball for a pitcher, especially ones as heavily relied upon as Daisuke and Hideki for Boston, no doubt is inhibiting their abilities late in the season. The transition is tough overall for Japanese players who aren't Ichiro, seemingly thanks to the combination of the scheduling differences (less games in a Japanese season, guaranteed off-days on every Monday) and an MLB-wide ignorance of this effect. Dice-K was treated like a seasoned American League veteran who can handle throwing a mythic number of pitches because he's so used to throwing every day, or something along those lines.

The difference in the leagues can be seen from even a Yankees perspective, both this year and in the past, thanks to the failures of the combination of Japanese pitchers and the pinstripes, as well as the streaky nature of Godzilla. Still, though, the Yankees have found fresh young arms at the right time in the right places late in the season, and have also found the right combination of effective front of the line starters. For all the talk of the Joba Rules, his unavailability was survived tonight, and you now have the combination of Wang/Chamberlain/Rivera scheduled and available for tomorrow's game. I presume Rivera will be available based on the effectiveness of Luis Vizcaino even with an apparent stiff shoulder. Mariano pitching more than an inning Wednesday, off Thursday, one inning Friday....it would make sense to use him on Saturday, then say he's unavailable on Sunday.

One thing the Yankees should learn, though, is to not guarantee he's available for all three games of the series and play the macho, must-beat-Boston headgames. It's enough that the Official Gutsy Veteran Martyr of the '07 Season starts Sunday, we don't need to hear about Mariano Rivera talking his way into a game that could take some of the crispness off his all-important arsenal heading forward. That lesson should be totally apparent based on the dropped velocity of Big Papi II.

The bottom line is, the game was like drawn-out torture to watch due to its length and pace, and it looked as though the Yankees emotionally were pulled from competitiveness when the deficit hit 5. And yet they won the game, and nobody had to bite the bullet and extend themselves into dangerous territory out of the bullpen. They were able to overcome a shaky outing from their #2 starter and so many men left on base early in the game and pull out a victory.

One of the most gut-wrenching yet entertaining regular season games you can find in a baseball season. So many crucial decisions made during the game, so much speculation to follow after the game about what managers did. A player looking like a defensive disaster, as though he was afraid of the ball at first base, and then getting credit as the ignitor of the spark for the 6-run comeback. Pick any angle to remember it by when you talk about it, it was an amazing game.