SO: That’s a final: Twins 2–0 over the Yanks. Looks like the Santana gambit’s working… so far.

SK: Hopefully the trend of the last few years, where the eventual winners lose the first (or first and second) game, will be reversed. God knows it’s time for a statistical correction in that matter.

SO: I hear the Yanks will start Kevin Brown in Game 3. So they had better win tomorrow night.

October 6th

They do, though it’s as fishy as Jonah’s old clothes—to my nose. The Twins are leading by one in the bottom of the twelfth with one out and closer Joe Nathan toiling through his unheard-of third inning of work. Nathan throws ten straight balls to put men on first and second, then grooves one to A-Rod. It’s hit deep to the left-center gap, and the whole Yankee dugout leaps up—except A-Rod’s missed it, and the ball barely makes the track (so why leap up when you’ve seen hundreds of flies to the track there and never moved an inch before?). Left fielder Shannon Stewart, playing back so nothing can get through, should have a bead on it but is uncharacteristically slow getting over and then doesn’t even make an attempt. It hits the track, and should win the game anyway, but bounces over the wall for a ground rule double, meaning the trail runner, Jeter, has to go back to third. So with a tie game and one out, Matsui steps in. He’s not patient, and ends up hitting a soft liner to right. Jacque Jones is playing in to cut down the run at the plate, and right field in Yankee Stadium is the smallest in all of baseball. Jones, with a decent if not spectacular arm, should have an excellent shot at getting Jeter. It’s a situation an outfielder dreams of: there’s no other play, no contingency. It can’t be more than 180 feet, and he’s got time to make sure he gets it there in the air so his catcher doesn’t have to deal with a hop. As long as he’s not way off-line to the first-base side, he should have Jeter by five steps, easy.

Instead, he flips the ball flat-footed to first baseman Matthew LeCroy, who relays it, late, and the Yankees win. ESPN’s commentators make no comment on this, which is just as bizarre. So the Yankees split.

SO: Man, I could have thrown out Jeter from there. What the hell was Jacque Jones thinking? Fix! Fix!

SK: Say it ain’t so, Stew! Next you’ll be telling me Jacque Jones was on the grassy knoll.

October 7th