BOSTON — Curtis Granderson opened brilliantly and had a chance to close even more spectacularly.
He turned around a Josh Beckett fastball in the second inning, following a Jorge Posada homer with one of his own, a majestic clout into Fenway’s right-field bleachers. It was a memorable hello, a first at-bat as calling card that his 30 homers last year were no fluke.
But some place between knocking Beckett out in the fifth inning and Neil Diamond taking the field to sing “Sweet Caroline” in the eighth, the Yankees lost control of the season opener. CC Sabathia wilted and the team’s supposedly deeper bullpen went all Veras and Bruney.
And that is why the Yankees were losing by two runs with two out in the ninth inning. Posada was on first, thanks to a two-out single off Jonathan Papelbon. That meant Granderson would get a shot for the kind of first-day good-bye that would have the folks at YES scrambling to figure out if it were too early for a Granderson Yankeeography or not.
He was the tying run. He was the last shot for the Yanks to avoid a discouraging opening loss to their most bitter foe. But Granderson could not furnish a memorable final blow. He could not open with a close. Instead, he grounded out to third, the last out in a 9-7 Boston victory.
“The one that will be remembered is that I didn’t come through at the end of the game,” Granderson said.
The Yankees did not lose because of Granderson. They lost the season opener because of a pitching staff that the Yankees envision being deep and a strength, instead being collectively atrocious on Day 1. Sabathia could not hold a 5-1 lead, and David Robertson, Chan Ho Park, Damaso Marte and Joba Chamberlain either allowed runs or permitted inherited runners to score.
Still, the champion 2009 Yankees were most renowned for their magical, last-inning comebacks. And Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui were as instrumental in that habit as anyone. They were the kind of players — not just talented, but calm in a storm — that the Yankees wanted to see bat in the most desperate and tension-filled of spots.
And rightly or wrongly, Granderson is viewed as part of the turning of the page away from those veteran lefty-swinging forces. The Yankees front office wanted to get younger and more defensively adept, and Granderson fit more in that program than the mid-30s bodies of Damon and Matsui. Granderson can bring elements that Damon and Matsui could not. For example, he made a running, leaping catch near the wall to turn what could have been more into just an Adrian Beltre sacrifice fly. That was in the bottom of the second. In the top he had homered.
From that point forward, however, Granderson exposed the issues that he will have to contend with all year, vs. lefties and vs. the ghosts of Damon and Matsui.
His final four at-bats all came with runners on base, and Granderson — as opposed to Damon and Matsui — does not have a clutch rep for his career. He went 0-for-3 with a walk. He grounded out against a drawn-in infield with a runner on third and one out in the fourth. His next two at-bats came against lefties. Granderson hit just .183 against southpaws in 2009, revealing by far the biggest hole in his game.
In the fifth inning, with the Yankees up 5-1, two on and two out, the Red Sox did what teams will do all season to Granderson: They sent in a lefty, this time Scott Schoeneweis in place of Beckett. Granderson struck out. He would walk off lefty Hideki Okajima in the seventh.
And then came the ninth. Posada got his third hit. Granderson said he was thinking about just extending the inning. He fell behind Papelbon before meekly grounding to Beltre.
“I had a chance to extend the game and I didn’t,” Granderson said.
Who knows what Damon or Matsui might have done? But the specter will linger for the Yankees’ center fielder. He will try to get used to a new team while contending with old ghosts.