N.y. Yanks Itself Out Of Last Place
Manager Torre was ejected for arguing the call after Abreu was caught stealing.
BOSTON — The New York Yankees are trying to break another one of baseball’s unwritten rules, the one that says a double-digit deficit on Memorial Day is insurmountable.
One game after Alex Rodriguez offended some baseball purists by distracting a fielder during a popup, the Yankees built on that victory by beating the Red Sox 9-5 on Friday and climbing out of the AL East cellar. No longer tied for last with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, New York still trails Boston by 12 1/2 games.
Jorge Posada had a pair of doubles, including a three-run shot to cap a six-run rally that broke a fourth-inning tie. Rodriguez reached base three times and scored twice despite the mockery of a Fenway crowd that — with the division race apparently in hand — had no place else to direct its longstanding anger.
The emotionless game boiled over with two outs to go, when Yankees mop-up man Scott Proctor dusted Kevin Youkilis — the fifth hit batter of the game — and he made a move toward the mound. The benches cleared, Proctor was ejected, and the fans who remained began their traditional anti-Yankees chant.
Chien-Ming Wang (4-4) scattered 10 hits and two walks over 5 2-3 innings, allowing three runs while striking out one to win for the third time in four starts.
Tim Wakefield (5-6) lasted 3 2-3 innings, giving up eight runs on five hits with six walks, a wild pitch and a hit batsman. He struck out two and saw his ERA balloon from 3.36 to 4.24.
Yankees manager Joe Torre was ejected for arguing the call at third base when Bobby Abreu was caught stealing in the fifth. The Yankees already led 9-3; (there’s supposed to be an unwritten rule about stealing with a big lead, too).
Robinson Cano, who was 4-for-4 with three doubles against Toronto on Wednesday, homered for the Yankees.
Manny Ramirez had four hits and Dustin Pedroia three for Boston, which lost both third baseman Mike Lowell and right-fielder J.D. Drew to apparently minor injuries during the game.
The start was delayed 25 minutes to honor Boston’s 1967 AL championship team, and it crawled its way to a finish more than four hours after the scheduled first pitch. Even the Boston fans’ glee over A-Rod’s personal and professional crises couldn’t keep them in their seats that long, and few stuck around for the end.
Among them was a contingent of a few dozen in the seats near the New York dugout that pulled on masks of a woman with blonde hair, a reference to the woman photographed with Rodriguez last weekend at a Toronto hotel. In a front-page story on Friday, the New York Post reported she is a former Las Vegas stripper.
The fans also mocked A-Rod’s antics in Toronto, when he yelled — “Mine!” or “Hah!” depending on whom you believe — at Blue Jays third baseman Howie Clark on an easy popup that then dropped in for a hit. The Yankees earned three runs and Toronto’s ire because of the play.
At Fenway, the crowd berated the Yankees at every infield fly, shouting at Rodriguez as he camped under Drew’s popup short of third base in the second inning. Rodriguez caught it and threw it to a fan as he left the field, but the fan threw it back.
