ANAHEIM, Calif. — John Lackey was furious as Mike Scioscia came out to the mound in the seventh inning. Lackey yelled at his manager, “This is mine! This is mine!”
But his manager stood his ground. Scioscia said no it wasn’t, and gave the ball to ex-Met Darren Oliver with the bases loaded. Oliver had been successful the entire postseason.
Lackey had just retired Johnny Damon on a fly to left for the second out. Scioscia had seen enough.
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“As good as I pitched,” a calm Lackey later explained in the clubhouse, “I got to the point in the game where I should have been able to determine it.”
You can’t argue with that. But this is what Scioscia was thinking:
“My head said, ‘Let’s turn [Mark Teixeira] around and get out of the inning right there.”
“Obviously it didn’t work out,” Scioscia said.
Teixeira doubled home three runs on the first pitch from Oliver. Then the go-ahead run was put on first when Alex Rodriguez was given an intentional walk. Hideki Matsui tied the game with a single up the middle and Robinson Cano tripled home two runs off righty Kevin Jepsen.
Lackey retreated to the clubhouse, probably to do some interior decorating, but came back later to cheer his teammates on in the dugout.
“Our guys did a great job,” Lackey said of the Angels hitters.
Yes they did. The Angels came into the game batting .201 in the series but broke out in a big way with four runs in the first. A.J. Burnett threw 12 pitches heaven sent to the Angels in that first inning.
He walked leadoff hitter Chone Figgins on five pitches then gave up a double to Bobby Abreu, a single to Torii Hunter and another double to Vlad Guerrero on the next four pitches. After falling behind Kendry Morales, 2-0, Burnett surrendered another run-scoring hit, a single to left and the Yankees were down, 4-0.
Scioscia still had big decisions to make, including bringing Jered Weaver in to pitch the eighth. It all worked out as the Yankees left the bases loaded in the ninth against Brian Fuentes.
The Angels are still alive, trailing 3-2 in the ALCS with Game 6 slated for Yankee Stadium tomorrow night and Joe Saunders on the mound.
Lackey said don’t count out his Angels.
“This isn’t close to as much adversity that we’ve seen this year,” the big right-hander said.