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Look back at: Divisional Playoffs |
League Championship
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Thursday, October 26
Game 4 at-bat of the night
By David Kull
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- Patience is a hallmark of Yankee hitting. The Yankees take pitches, work counts in their favor and wait for good pitches to hit. But the temptation was too great for Derek Jeter.
Leading off Game 4 of the Subway Series on Wednesday, the Yankees shortstop didn't have time to wait. Impatience got the better of Jeter, who swung at the first pitch from Mets starter Bobby J. Jones and hammered it deep into the bleachers in left-center field.
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Wed., Oct. 25
I talked to Joe Torre about Derek Jeter before the game. Jeter stepped into the batter's box, and Torre said, "This guy is really special, Buck." Reggie Jackson happened to be standing to my left. I leaned back and said, "Kind of like that guy?" And Joe said, "Yeah, but Derek doesn't command the attention. He plays it low-key, and is very special."
Jeter reminds me of the way Willie Mays used to lead off in the All-Star games, the way he would do things and make things happen. And the remarkable thing about him is he's just starting out his career. I compared him to Paul Molitor when Molitor was 37 and 38, older in his career. He really had a lot of sense and instincts on the bases. Jeter has all of that now. He runs the bases, hits balls out of the ballpark one way, and hits triples the other way, and there is no way to defend him.
Torre talked about A-Rod having more talent, and Nomar Garciaparra having the same and maybe better talent. But the overall package you get with Jeter is pretty special, especially to play in World Series games and produce like he does.
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Jeter's homer, the eighth leadoff shot in World Series history, set the tone immediately. Feeding off his aggressiveness, the Yankees made the lead stick eight innings later in a 3-2 victory that put them on the brink of a third straight World Series title.
Perhaps Jeter felt a sense of urgency following the Yankees' first World Series defeat since 1996. The Mets were a confident bunch after ending the 14-game Series winning streak of their crosstown rivals. For one brief, momentum-shifting moment, the Mets were mounted atop the Big Apple.
So forgive Jeter for being in a hurry when he dug into the batter's box against Jones. Before the official scorer could announce the time of the first pitch as 8:37 p.m., Jeter made time stand still. He turned on an inside fastball, launched it an estimated 384 feet, and elicited noise only from the minority Yankee faithful in attendance at Shea Stadium.
"There's a few Yankee fans here," said Jeter, who became the first player to homer on the opening pitch of a World Series game since Pete Rose for the '72 Reds and first to lead off with a homer since Rickey Henderson in Game 4 of the 1989 Series. "You want to take the (Mets) crowd out of it."
The Jeter home run was a sudden blow to the Mets' gut. He tagged Jones for an opposite-field triple in the third inning and scored the Yankees' third and final run. But digging the Mets a one-run hole at the outset ultimately led to an even greater abyss later when they came to grips with a 3-1 Series deficit.
"Putting a run on the board was the difference in the game," Mets manager Bobby Valentine said.
Although he usually bats second in the Yankee lineup, Jeter thrived in the leadoff spot when Chuck Knoblauch was either sidelined with a wrist injury or out because of his defensive struggles at second base. In 21 games at the top of the order, Jeter sizzled, hitting .402 in 82 at-bats.
But regardless of the numbers, Yankees manager Joe Torre continues to insist that Jeter is not a leadoff hitter and never will be -- at least permanently.
"He may be leading off, but he's not a leadoff hitter," Torre said. "He?s going to see the ball. He's going to swing at the ball. He makes things happen."
As for Jeter, now hitting .444 in the Series, he just goes along with the program, one that's hard to discredit when it continues to produce championships. Whether he bats first, second or ninth in the order, Jeter walks to the plate with little pretense about what he wants to do.
"Everyone seems to want to ask me if I changed my approach when I bat leadoff," said Jeter, who now has five career leadoff homers. "But Mr. Torre tells me I have the same approach. I'm aggressive. I've been known to swing at the first pitch.
"So when you're playing these types of games, when runs can be kind of hard to come by, you want to score early. So I got a good pitch to hit, and I hit it well. Fortunately, it carried out."
And it may have carried the Mets' hopes along with it.
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