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Yanks aren't holding up their end of the rivalry

Johnette Howard

July 4, 2008

The game ended at 9:54 p.m. but the Yankees' clubhouse door stayed shut for 15 minutes, then 20. At one point a team spokesman poked his head out and said, "We're gonna be here a while, folks." And he wasn't kidding.

There wasn't any shouting that could be overheard or any indication that a clubhouse food spread was being tossed over by irritated Yankees manager Joe Girardi.

But for those 31 minutes the Yankees met behind closed doors after their 7-0 spanking last night by Boston, it felt like the first sign of fight that they showed all night.

Asked what bothered him most about the game, Girardi groused, "Everything."

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This was one of those ugly but increasingly common nights for the Yankees that will make a liar out of Red Sox slugger David Ortiz and all those other sentimentalists who still behave as if it's the summer of 2004, AL East leader Tampa Bay doesn't exist and the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is still blazing along as hot as it ever was.

It used to be the best show in sports. It's not anymore. And it's because the Yankees aren't holding up their end.

The old intrigue - star-crossed Boston trying to reverse the curse, the imperial Yankees trying to lengthen the psychodrama yet another year - used to give these showdowns their hard feelings and a real snap. But Boston has won two World Series since then.

When the Red Sox pulled back into town last night, there was something palpable missing, and it wasn't just that the Yankees didn't bring any electricity. It was also who let them down: Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter were actually booed. And catcher Jorge Posada elicited some sympathetic groans as the Red Sox tried to run on him at every early opportunity when this was still a game, not a sleepwalk. But at least he has a doctor's note. He'll need surgery at season's end.

For a decade, Jeter, Pettitte, Posada and Mariano Rivera have been the best warhorses the Yankees have had in this rivalry. The four of them constitute the franchise's last on-field ties to those years when Boston used to fold up the way the Yankees did last night.

But when three of them look mortal and feeble at once, and the game is such a blowout that Rivera never even warms up, it's hard to stave off the creeping feeling that this really isn't going to be the Yankees' year - if you didn't already have that feeling from watching their patchwork starting pitching staff, or the sight of Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera not hitting, or Jason Giambi contributing more home runs and RBIs than A-Rod, who's starting to slip back into that guy who doesn't produce in the clutch.

When you add all that up, Ortiz is wrong: It doesn't matter how many times the Yankees have come back from big deficits in other seasons to squeak into the playoffs.With last night's loss, the Yankees are five games behind the Red Sox and eight games behind Tampa Bay.

Jeter admitted he heard the smattering of boos for him after a wall-to-wall horrible night that started with a first-inning throwing error that opened the door for Boston's first two runs, a rally-killing double play he hit into and a strikeout in the sixth.

Pettitte, who gave up nine hits and six runs in 4 2/3 innings, was equally bad.

"I was terrible. There's no other way to describe it," he said.

To them as well as Girardi, perhaps the most baffling thing was that the Yankees should have had a lot going for them last night.

They were coming off a feel-good 18-run outburst against Texas the night before at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox came limping into town in the early-morning hours lugging a five-game losing streak, and the last three of them were in key games against Tampa Bay. And the Yankees were starting their best big-game pitcher, Pettitte, a man who had won his last six decisions and hadn't lost since May 17.

But once Boston jumped on them for those two runs in the first, then two more in the second, the Yankees continued another disturbing trend: When they get knocked down early, they rarely get back up.

Posada wouldn't say if that was among the things they talked about afterward.

"That's between me and my team," he said, his face grim.

In today's 1 p.m. rematch, the Yankees will toss out Darrell Rasner against Red Sox ace Josh Beckett. After this four-game stay by Boston is over, Tampa Bay comes to town for two games. If the Yankees don't rally soon, they could be 11 or 12 games out by the All-Star break.

When Brian Cashman was asked the other day when the Yankees need to start making their move up the standings, no wonder Cashman shot back, "Yesterday."

But yesterday's gone. And it could be a while for the Yankees before the glory days come back.