Yankees Take 3-1 Subway Edge
N E W Y O R K, Oct. 26, 2000 -- Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees wasted notime sending a message: first pitch, first inning, home run.
Jeter led off with a drive over the left-field fence and theYankees led the rest of the way, beating the New York Mets 3-2Wednesday night in Game 4 to move within one victory of their thirdstraight World Series championship.
Derailed a day earlier, the Yankees got right back on track intaking a 3-1 lead in this Subway Series. Jeter homered and tripled,and Mariano Rivera finished off 4 1-3 scoreless innings by theYankees bullpen.
Silent Shea
A sellout crowd of 55,290 at Shea Stadium seemed much moresubdued than Game 3, possibly because of a much larger presence ofYankees fans.
The ballpark figures to be a lot louder — either way — onThursday night when the Yankees try to become the first team sincethe 1972-74 Oakland Athletics to win three titles in a row.
Andy Pettitte will start Game 5 against the Mets’ Al Leiter. Ofthe prior 40 teams to take a 3-1 lead in the World Series, 34 havegone on to win the championship.
Mike Piazza’s two-run homer pulled the Mets within 3-2 in thethird inning, and there was no more scoring as both managers madeearly moves to the bullpen.
Cone Gets Piazza
Yankees starter Denny Neagle was pulled after 4 2-3 innings,with David Cone coming in to retire Piazza on a popup to end thefifth.
Reliever Jeff Nelson pitched 1 1-3 innings and was credited withthe win, Mike Stanton struck out the only two batters he faced andRivera pitched two innings for his first save of the series, withYankees fans erupting when he struck out Matt Franco to end thegame.
Losing pitcher Bobby J. Jones was lifted after five innings.Relievers Glendon Rusch, John Franco and Armando Benitez kept theYankees from breaking away.
The Yankees scored single runs in each of the first threeinnings. They did it without a contribution from cleanup man BernieWilliams, who was hitless in four at-bats and dropped to 0-for-15in the Series.
Playing on the 14th anniversary of one of their most famousGames — the Bill Buckner-assisted comeback in Game 6 of the 1986World Series — the Mets had no luck from the start.
A Blast to Begin
Jeter stepped in and, with many fans still getting settled,launched a drive to deep left. Among those to cheer was one of hisbest friends, Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez, from the front row.
It was a stunning blow, and only the eighth time a World Seriesgame had started with a home run, and the first since RickeyHenderson did it for Oakland in 1989. The hit also extended Jeter’shitting streak in World Series play to 13 games.
In the second, Paul O’Neill tripled for the second straight day— after not hitting any since July 23, 1999 — and, following anintentional walk to Jorge Posada, scored on Scott Brosius’sacrifice fly.
New York made it 3-0 in the third. Jeter led off with a triple,giving him eight hits in this Series, and trotted home as Luis Sojogrounded out.
Mets fans did not seem daunted, probably figuring their teamwould have a chance to get back into the game against Neagle.
They were right.
Slumping Timo Perez opened the third with a single up the middleand Piazza, who hit a long drive that hooked foul his first timeup, lined a 75 mph changeup into the bleachers in left-centerfield.
Piazza’s second two-run homer of the Series also marked hisfourth home run of this postseason — a lot of production from theAll-Star catcher who went into this October batting only .211(12-for-57) with two homers in past postseasons.