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Check mate Stanton ruins Valentine's seventh-inning gambit
By Daniel G. Habib, Sports Illustrated NEW YORK -- Managerial chess, Round 4, was an intricate affair in the bottom of the seventh inning Wednesday night at Shea Stadium. On its face, not much happened: Yankee relievers Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton struck out the side, with a walk to Mets pinch-hitter Lenny Harris sandwiched in between. But before it was over, the Yankees had used two relievers and the Mets four pinch-hitters and a defensive triple-switch. The reason? With untouchable (at least before Sunday) closer Mariano Rivera looming in the bullpen and fully expected to start the eighth, the bottom of the seventh was, Bobby Valentine figured, his last great chance to keep his club in the game. "We know he's there," Valentine said. "You know, we're one run down, and I got some shots at putting a couple guys up there who could get an extra-base hit, get something going. Yeah, I wanted to score in the seventh. It would have been good to tie the game there."
Nelson, who had worked around Todd Zeile's leadoff single in the sixth by stabbing a Benny Agbayani comebacker and doubling Zeile off first, started the seventh by striking out Jay Payton looking. Then the machinations began. Valentine sent pinch-hitter extraordinaire Lenny Harris in for shortstop Mike Bordick -- whom Valentine had chosen to let hit against Orlando Hernandez with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning of Game 3. Bordick struck out swinging on an El Duque fastball, and after pinch-hitter Darryl Hamilton grounded into a force play, the Mets came up empty, a result for which Valentine was second-guessed. In Game 4, being one run down gave him an itchy trigger finger from the dugout. "Major difference," Valentine explained. "Last night was a tie game in the sixth inning; today we were one run down in the seventh." Torre elected to leave Nelson in, and Harris worked the count full before walking. Valentine summoned Hamilton, forcing Torre to switch to Stanton for a lefty-lefty match up. But Valentine trumped him as he had in Game 3, using Hamilton as a strategic burn to force Torre's hand in the bullpen: As soon as Stanton was warmed, Valentine tabbed Trammell. Since Torre has shown he'll stick with his big three from the pen, getting Nelson out of the game figured to give Valentine the advantage. But Stanton, who had thrown 2 2/3 hitless innings with four strikeouts in the series, was the right call, striking out Trammell, then pinch-hitter Kurt Abbott (who hit for left-handed Timo Perez) to strand Harris at first. Valentine played all his cards -- pinch-hitting four times -- and got beat by a pair of strong setup men. When he inserted Matt Franco at first in the top of the eighth, Valentine had exhausted all his viable bench bats except for backup catcher Todd Pratt. That left him with no ammunition against Rivera in the eighth and ninth, and Mo worked two lethally efficient innings -- fanning Franco to end the game -- to give New York a 3-1 Series lead. "Would I have been surprised if Rivera wasn't great?" Stanton asked. "Absolutely. That guy's got ice water in his veins. He's amazing to watch." Like the multi-layered bullpen on 1996, which featured the Rivera-John Wetteland setup prefaced by Nelson, Graeme Lloyd and David Weathers, the Yankee relievers of Game 4 wrapped better than a Dickens plotline. "God, it was a tough ballgame tonight," Torre said. "We needed every single bit of contribution that we got from every pitcher out there." Luckily for Torre, he had enough pieces to finish the game.
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