PHILADELPHIA — When it was over, the clubhouse boys were stuffing gear into bags rather than wrapping plastic over lockers. Instead of uncorking champagne, the Yankees were tossing socks and sanitary hose into big laundry bins. Bud Selig, with no presentation to make, walked briskly and bypassed the room altogether.
There was no music, no laughter, very little conversation, very little interaction at all. But over in the far corner of the room, one very penitent pitcher took all of this — all of the quiet, all of the disappointment, all of the frustration — and heaved it onto his shoulders like a thousand-pound knapsack.
“I let 25 guys down,” A.J. Burnett said. “I let a whole city down.”
He wasn’t about to spare himself the rod, which is just as well, because the Phillies had already beaten him to it. So often these past few weeks, Burnett had spoken of dreaming precisely this dream a thousand times before: ball in his hand, champagne on ice in a back room, Commissioner’s Trophy sitting in the house.
His dreams, though, had always shaken out different than this.
He certainly would get more than six outs in those dreams, would always face more than 15 hitters, would surely allow a lot fewer than six runs in two-plus innings. If this really was a dream, it was directed by Tim Burton.
“If we would have pitched today, we probably would have won today,” said manager Joe Girardi, who also was in no mood for euphemisms. “That’s the bottom line. A.J. struggled today. That’s something that happens in the game of baseball.”
Maybe the Yankees were due. Maybe Burnett was due. In their first 13 games of the postseason, they’d received 13 starts of six innings or better from their three-man workhorse rotation. Burnett was responsible for four of those starts, including Game 2 of this World Series when he’d allowed only four hits in seven innings and looked virtually unhittable.
He’d also been in an almost identical position in Anaheim two weeks ago, Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, a chance to close out the Angels, and he’d been dreadful early. But even at that — four runs scoring before he ever recorded an out — he’d gritted his way back, minimized the damage, bought the Yankees time enough to make an ill-fated comeback.
This time, it was three runs before an out, and then three more runs in the third, and Burnett didn’t even wait for Girardi to reach the pitcher’s mound, descending down the hill early, handing the ball to his manager on the go, his head down, a deafening band of abuse raining down from rejoicing Phillies fans.
Back in the dugout, he stared blankly into space. The Yankees had hopped on Cliff Lee early, tagged him for a run-scoring double by Alex Rodriguez, and it was apparent that Lee wasn’t anywhere near the untouchable force of nature he’d been in Game 1. They handed that precious 1-0 lead to Burnett, asked him to entrust it.
“But I couldn’t do anything right,” he said. “I couldn’t throw strikes. I couldn’t locate. In Game 2, I felt like I could put the ball wherever I wanted it. Tonight …”
He let the thought hang in the air for a couple of seconds.
“Tonight,” he said, “I embarrassed myself.”
It got worse for Burnett after he repaired to the clubhouse, because his teammates threw the inevitable burst of terror into the Phillies, into the 46,178 inside Citizens Bank Park (less the couple of thousand boisterous Yankee fans in the left-field bleachers). The Phillies’ lead reached 8-2 before Lee finally tired, and the assault was on.
It was 8-5 by the ninth. The Yankees had first and third, no one out, Derek Jeter at the plate, and a starting pitcher dying a hundred deaths in the clubhouse, watching it on television, sick to his stomach.
“If I pitch even a little bit like I’m capable of,” Burnett said, “we have a real chance to win this game. A great chance. And maybe we’re already celebrating in here.”
But he didn’t. The hole was too great. Jeter bounced into a double play, making the score 8-6 but restoring the color to 44,000 or so cheeks. Mark Teixeira struck out as the tying run. We get two more days of baseball season, at least. We get another Pedropalooza in The Bronx. All of that is fun. None of it is what A.J. Burnett had in mind.
Someone asked if he would be available to work a hitter here, an inning there in either Game 6 or, if necessary, 7. Burnett only threw 53 pitches, after all. And for the first time in a couple of hours, he started to perk up again.
“Oh, man,” he said, “I would love that.”