Considering the only physician the Yankees haven’t sent their players to this season is Dr. Spock and the size of their disabled list seems to expand by the day, there were more than a few fluttering hearts when trainer Steve Donohue and Joe Girardi went to the mound last night to check on ace Chien-Ming Wang.
With the Cy Young candidate cruising through the Mariners’ lineup in the fifth inning, Wang summoned catcher Jose Molina to the mound and informed the catcher he had a cramp at the base of his right thumb.
Molina signaled for Donohue, and every cell in the Yankees universe went cold for an instant.
“When I tried to throw the pitch I could feel tightness,” said Wang, who remained in the game, walking Jamie Burke and feeding Yuniesky Betancourt an inning-ending double play grounder. Wang worked the sixth when he gave up Seattle’s only run.
When he left after six innings, it was feared Wang was suffering from an injury. Instead, the cramp had subsided and there was no heavy toll to pay for the 5-1 victory in front of 52,199 at Yankee Stadium, a win the Mariners gift-wrapped by making four errors that accounted for two unearned runs.
“Maybe the cold weather, and I tried to throw the ball too hard,” Wang said when asked for a reason for the cramp that Girardi said wouldn’t be a lingering issue.
Wang (6-0) is more than a cramp to the Mariners. In seven career starts, he is 7-0 against Seattle. The win stopped a three-game losing streak for the Yankees (15-16).
Working in short sleeves despite a temperature of 49 degrees when he threw the first pitch, Wang allowed Raul Ibanez to lead off the fourth with the Mariners’ second hit, an opposite-field double to left. However, unlike the first inning when his signature turbo sinker wasn’t behaving, Wang had no trouble leaving Ibanez on second. He got Adrian Beltre to ground out, fanned Jeff Clement and induced Richie Sexson to hit a grounder to Derek Jeter.
Though the Dead Bats Society continued to wear Yankees uniforms and produce three earned runs and seven hits (six singles), the Yankees were fortunate the Mariners came dressed as Edward Scissorhands.
Betancourt’s inability and refusal to lean down and catch Jeter’s grounder to short in the first led to an unearned run against Erik Bedard (2-1), when Hideki Matsui extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a two-out RBI single.
Beltre failed to field Morgan Ensberg’s leadoff grounder in the second, and second baseman Jose Lopez dropped a throw that would have completed a strike-out/throw-out double play later in the inning. That helped the Yankees score twice (one earned) when Melky Cabrera doubled home Ensberg and Alberto Gonzalez.
A fourth error, a foul pop dropped by catcher Jamie Burke in the third, didn’t lead to a run, but the four errors matched the visitors’ hit total.
With Wang gone, Girardi went for Kyle Farnsworth and after a knee scare for the reliever (Girardi said it was like a knuckle cracking), he worked a perfect seventh. Joba Chamberlain gave up a hit in a scoreless eighth and Mariano Rivera, who hadn’t appeared since Monday, hurled the ninth in a non-save situation.