2000 Yankees Diary, September 14: An extra-inning loss to the Jays

On February 18, 1999, the New York Yankees acquired Roger Clemens from the Toronto Blue Jays. Headlining the haul headed to Toronto: David “Boomer” Wells, who’d won 34 games for the Yankees the previous two seasons. Oh, and he’d happened to have one of the greatest single-game pitching performances in Yankees history, to boot.

September 14, 2000 was not the first time Wells faced off with his former club. He’d pitched a half-dozen games versus the Yankees since moving north of the border. This one, however, was one of his best performances against New York. For the Yanks, Andy Pettitte was up to the challenge. A critical throwing error by Andy unfortunately resulted in a run, the only one Toronto could scrape across in regulation. Ultimately, the Yankees lost in 11. It was innocuous in the moment, but preceded an awful slump for the Bombers as the season closed down.

September 14: Yankees 2, Blue Jays 3 (11) (box score)

Record: 84-60, .583 (8 GA)

The former teammates Wells and Pettitte were both on point in this one. The two portside slingers exchanged dueling zeroes in the run column through the first seven innings. The Blue Jays finally broke through in the eighth and Pettitte had no one to blame but himself.

After surrendering a leadoff double, Pettitte fielded an attempted sacrifice bunt attempt by Alberto Castillo and had a play at third. Unfortunately, his throw sailed into left field, allowing the runner to easily trot home with the first run of the game. Considering how Boomer had carved through the Yankee lineup, it looked like that might be enough. Pettitte’s final line: 7.1 IP, 1 R, 0 ER, 9 K.

Luckily, Andy’s buddy Derek Jeter had his back. Jeets came to the dish in the home half of the inning and worked the count to 3-1. Wells challenged Jeter with a fastball and the future Hall of Famer did not miss. Jeter drove the ball to deep center field, sailing past the 408-foot marker for an absolute no-doubter. And with that swing of the bat, the two teams were back where they started.

The next couple innings were much ado about nothing. Then the 11th hour, or at least inning, arrived. In the top half, José Cruz Jr. hit a two-run home run out to left field against future LOOGY extraordinaire Randy Choate, which just escaped the leaping of Luis Polonia. And I mean, it just missed, Polonia was perhaps an inch from snaring the ball, bringing it back into the field of play, and keeping the game tied. Instead, the Jays led 3-1.

New York tried to rally in the bottom of the stanza. With one out, Ryan Thompson homered off Kelvim Escobar, allowing the tying run to come to the plate twice. Alas, neither Tino Martinez nor Jorge Posada could keep the rally alive. The latter struck out swinging to seal the loss.

With 18 games to go, the Yankees sat at 84-60, with an eight-game lead over Boston in the AL East. You’d have been perfectly within your rights to shrug this loss off and think the Yankees were safe. For anyone who remembers how the 2000 regular season closed, however, that eight-game lead was barely large enough for the Yanks to hold on as they embarked on a horrific late-September swoon.

Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.

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