Wang's bid for perfection thwarted in eighth inning
BY JIM BAUMBACH
jim.baumbach@newsday.com
May 5, 2007, 10:55 PM EDT
Once Jorge Posada saw the pitch leave Chien-Ming Wang's hand, he knew
it meant trouble. In that mere nanosecond, all he could do was hope
Seattle's Ben Broussard would not swing.
But all it takes to break up a perfect game is one measly mistake, and
this was it for Wang. After retiring Seattle's first 22 hitters, the
Yankees righthander threw an 0-and-1 changeup that Broussard deposited
over the right-centerfield wall.
And as if losing a perfect game with five outs left wasn't painful enough,
consider this: That was the only changeup Wang threw all day.
There still was so much for the Yankees to feel good about in their
8-1 win, considering Wang gave them such a strong performance on the
heels of Friday's 15-11 loss and leading into starts by Darrell Rasner
and Matt DeSalvo.
But Posada couldn't help but listen to the nagging voice in his head
and wonder, what if? As in, what could have happened if he didn't
pick that moment for Wang to throw his first change?
Standing in front of his locker with his eyes staring off into the
distance, the longtime Yankees catcher said, "You never second-guess
yourself, but ... after it happens you do. You call a changeup -- the
first one all day -- and it goes for a home run."
Joe Torre tried to console Posada, saying he told him after the game, "You
can't throw it for him." But Posada has been in this spot before,
having caught David Wells' perfect game nine years ago. He knew Wang
had the stuff to make history. "I thought he had it," he said. "I
really did."
Wang's first pitch to Broussard was a fastball for a called strike.
That led Posada to call for the changeup for the first time. "He was
on the fastball," he said. "I wanted to throw a changeup and then go
back to the fastball." But Wang threw it right down the middle and it
never reached Posada's glove. The fans gave Wang a standing ovation
and Posada ran out to the mound to give him a breather.
Whether Wang knew what was going on, that's another story. He insisted
he did not realize he had a perfect game going until Posada told him
after the eighth. "I wondered why no one was talking to me," he said.
But you can bet the 51,702 fans at Yankee Stadium were well aware of
Wang's bid to pitch what would have been baseball's 16th perfect game
since the turn of the 20th century.
Their cheers were loudest with two outs in the seventh when Wang fell
behind 3-and-0 against Raul Ibanez. The fans cheered as if they were
willing him to throw a strike, and he answered by striking him out.
That was the moment when Torre and Posada both got the sense Wang might
be perfect. Derek Jeter, a veteran of perfect games by Wells and David Cone,
said he started to really think about it by the fifth inning.
Wang's bid came four days after Phil Hughes had a no-hitter going for
61/3 innings but had to leave with a pulled hamstring.
Wang (1-2), who allowed a single by Jose Guillen immediately after
Broussard's home run and departed after eight innings, certainly
had his share of help along the way. Hideki Matsui ran down a long
drive to left-center by Ichiro Suzuki leading off the seventh and
Alex Rodriguez made two impressive defensive plays.
There definitely would have been no perfect-game bid had Wang not
gotten in the way of Ichiro's hard-hit grounder in the fourth.
It hit Wang in the left ankle and bounced to the third-base side of
the mound. Wang initially didn't know where it was, looking up and
then in front of him before recovering in time.
Pitching coach Ron Guidry and trainer Steve Donohue rushed to the mound,
which was understandable, given the recent string of injuries. Wang
reported only a little soreness afterward.
For a while, former Yankee Jeff Weaver (0-5) all but matched Wang,
allowing only a run through five innings. But the Yankees broke it open
with a five-run sixth that featured an RBI single by Posada and a
two-out, two-run double by Jeter.
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