Yankees 2 Mets 1
It was a beautiful night for the Yankees in front of 54,132 fans at Shea. There was Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez outpitching All-Star Al Leiter. There was Paul O’Neill looking like Ken Griffey Jr., jumping to steal a sure home run from Derek Bell in the eighth, a homer that would’ve tied the game.
And there was the score from Montreal last night. The Expos defeated the Blue Jays, 10-5. So after last night’s 2-1 victory over the Mets, the Yankees are back in first place for the first time since June 21.
Today, Dwight Gooden returns to Shea in the highlight of the day-night, two-venue doubleheader, which is the first of its kind since 1903.
After giving up two runs on four straight singles in the first, Leiter showed why he’s a candidate to start the All-Star Game Tuesday in Atlanta. Leiter retired the next 14 batters and 19 of the next 20. The one baserunner, Derek Jeter – who reached on an infield single that really should have been scored an error on Melvin Mora – was picked off by Leiter. Still, it wasn’t enough.
“I pitched well, but El Duque pitched better,” said Leiter, who only lost for the second time in 12 decisions.
It was only the third time the Mets have lost in Leiter’s 15 starts. With the Braves’ 5-3 win over the Red Sox, the Mets fell 2½ games behind Atlanta
Hernandez (8-6) pitched better than Leiter and was aided by two awesome defensive plays, one by him and one by O’Neill.
“It seemed like he wanted to pitch a big game and show he is a big-game pitcher,” said Jorge Posada. “We need El Duque and he knows that.”
As with all of the Yankees’ starters, Hernandez has had an up-and-down season. However against the Mets, he’s been virtually untouchable the last two years. He is 2-0 in three starts, and in the one no-decision he gave up one run in eight innings.
“Unfortunately for us, we caught him on an upswing,” said Mike Piazza, who went 0-for-4.
After missing a start due to a sore elbow, Hernandez added his second quality start last night. A week ago today, he threw 5 2/3 innings and gave up only a run in a 6-1 win at Tampa Bay. Last night, though, he was even better.
“No, I’m not 100 percent,” said Hernandez, who kept the ball down. “I am making progress. I am making a lot of progress.”
He was aided by as clutch as catch as you’ll ever see. With the Mets down 2-0 in the eighth, Melvin Mora banged a one-out gapper to right center and aggressively went to third for a triple.
Bell smashed the ball the opposite way toward the right field wall, but the 6-foot-4 O’Neill leaped and extended his right glove hand over the wall and made the play. In disbelief, Bell put his hands on his helmet. Mora came home to score to cut the Yankee lead to 2-1.
“I turned around and the way the wind was blowing, anything can happen,” O’Neill said. “The wind here gets a lot of balls.”
In the ninth, with Mariano Rivera on the mound, the Mets came close again. After Mike Piazza and Robin Ventura popped out, Todd Zeile nearly took Mariano Rivera’s head off with a single to center. This brought up Jay Payton.
On a 1-2 pitch, Payton looped a ball down the right-field line. If it were fair, pinch-runner Joe McEwing, running for Zeile at first, surely would’ve tied the game.
“At first, I thought it was foul,” Payton said. “As I watched it, it floated and floated and it stayed up there. At the last second it ended up being foul.”
After running the count to 3-2, Payton flied out to O’Neill, and Rivera had his 19th save.
Actually, Hernandez used both his arms to stifle the Mets. After getting in trouble in the fifth with back-to-back walks to Zeile and Payton, Hernandez fed Benny Agbayani a fastball that Agbayani lined up the middle. But Hernandez, in the motion of window wiper, snared the ball out of the air and turned a double-play.
“I don’t know how he caught that ball,” Bobby Valentine said. “It happened so quickly I didn’t see how he got his ball back to it. I was just looking to see if Jeter was going to be close to it.”
The Yankees did all the scoring early. Leiter walked the leadoff hitter, Chuck Knoblauch, but promptly picked him off. Jeter singled to right and O’Neill singled to left. This allowed Bernie Williams to knock a solid one-bounce RBI single to Derek Bell in right. Jorge Posada followed with his own RBI single, this to left.