Carl Pavano threw one pitch. Some fan couldn’t resist.
“He’s getting tired.”
After he finished the Yankees 1-2-3 in the first for Cleveland, another fan had his say.
“You still (bleep), Pavano.”
They’re so forgiving and loving in The Bronx.
“If ever there was a time when somebody needed to have some thick skin, today was it and he showed that,” said Cleveland manager Eric Wedge who saw Pavano throw six masterful innings, leave with the lead but get no decision in the Yanks’ 7-3 win at the Stadium.
The Indian bullpen undid all the positive labor Pavano provided against his former team. Pavano, 33, resembled the pitcher the Yankees anticipated through four years and $39.95 million. But Pavano gave them 26 games and 145 2/3 innings – just nine games and 45 2/3 innings over the last three seasons that were littered with injuries and Tommy John surgery.
“It’s not about the critics, it’s about winning ball games. We lost as a team today. It wasn’t about me. It was about the Indians,” said Pavano who weaved a devastating changeup amid fastballs and sliders, keeping the Yanks off balance for six innings that held four hits, one earned run, one walk, four strikeouts.
“I didn’t have the best fastball but I was able to command it well,” Pavano explained of his 89-pitch outing. “My slider and my changeup was workingaAny count I was comfortable throwing any pitch. I was getting ahead off speed at times, getting ahead fastball at times.”
Pavano, shelled in his first two starts, retired the first 10 Yanks before a Derek Jeter double and Mark Teixeira RBI single got the Yanks a run in the fourth. He then faced a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the sixth with Nick Swisher coming up. Wedge visited and told Pavano it was his moment. Pavano fanned Swisher for the third time, second time via a changeup.
“He told me I’d been solid all game and he wanted to see me get the job done. That’s a little example of the things I’ve seen from him that proves he’s a special manager, a special man and I respect him for that,” Pavano said.
And that was the nicest stuff Pavano heard all day.
YANKEES GAMER
(HED AND SUBHED CAN REMAIN THE SAME)
By MARK HALE
It was initially called a home run by the umpires, and it remained a home run after a review. Jorge Posada’s game-turning shot, however, was both nearly caught and nearly reversed.
The Yankees were immersed in their most controversial play of the early season and their first controversial play in their new ballpark, all of it stemming from Posada’s seventh-inning at-bat. The catcher came up as a pinch hitter with one on, one out and the Yankees down a run against the Indians. Three pitches later, things got messy.
Facing reliever Jensen Lewis, Posada drove a shot to right on a 1-1 pitch. Cleveland right fielder Trevor Crowe jumped at the fence, and both he and a fan named Brian Doyle went for the ball. It appeared to hit off Doyle, hit the top of the wall and then bounce back onto the field.
The call on the field was a homer, giving the Yankees the lead. But the play went to a replay review. Only after all that did the homer stand, giving the Yankees a one-run lead in their eventual 7-3 victory.
The umpire crew declined to comment, but asked what the umpires said, Joe Girardi replied, “That it hit the fan behind the fence and came back.”
Doyle – a 33-year-old from Scotch Plain, NJ who coincidentally shares the same name as a former Yankee – had a welt on his wrist from the ball. He insisted it was a homer.
“I thought it was going to be short but it was definitely over the wall, definitely past the yellow [W.B. Mason sign],” he said. “Definitely a home run, no question. . . . I know I hit a glove. I don’t know if it was [Crowe’s] or the guy next to me.”
If there was no fan interference, there was at least fan involvement on the Jeffrey Maier-esque play. Crowe said he “would have caught it” if the fan wasn’t involved, and Indians manager Eric Wedge said, “My argument was that the fan’s hand and his glove met at the same time at the top of the fence, but [the umpires] saw it differently.”
Posada said he was “running off the bat,” but when he reached second, the ump signaled it was a homer. Added Derek Jeter, “I thought it was a home run.”
On Saturday the Yankees were drilled 22-4, and today they were headed for their third loss in four games in their inaugural homestand. Embarrassingly, they were suffocated by former punch-line Carl Pavano, who held them to just one run in six innings, outpitching A.J. Burnett.
The Indians led 3-1 going into the seventh, but Robinson Cano opened with a double, and Hideki Matsui singled him home. After Cody Ransom’s forceout, Posada delivered.
The Yankees added three insurance runs in the eighth on a misplayed three-run double that Ransom hit, but the other key point came before Posada’s homer. In the seventh, Cleveland loaded the bases off Burnett, but Jonathan Albaladejo retired Mark De Rosa on a force at home and Victor Martinez on a groundout.
“That’s the turning point in the game,” Mark Teixeira said.
In the clubhouse before the game, Nick Swisher ripped the front page off three newspapers in the clubhouse, saying, “It’s a new day, brother.” Thanks to Posada’s homer, it turned out to be.
-Additional reporting by Fred Kerber and Dan Tomasino