|
|
 |
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE | |
Taking it to the limit Dead Diamondbacks arise -- surprise -- to force Game 7
Updated: Sunday November 04, 2001 3:47 AM
PHOENIX -- You just can't figure baseball sometimes. Momentum, confidence, favorites, pitching dominance, slumping bats, choice of songs, heroes, goats, genius managers ... everything changes with the dip of a breaking ball or a swing of the bat. The Arizona Diamondbacks were done as done can be. They were well done. They were butterflied. Three one-run losses in New York, especially the last two -- gut-ripping, psyche-sapping, last-inning collapses -- had them cooked. A lot of people thought so. Even with Randy Johnson going in Game 6 and, if they were lucky enough to get past six, Curt Schilling in Game 7, the Yankees' magic was back. Then came Saturday, back home in Phoenix, and all the sudden the Diamondbacks are ... well, corny as it may seem, they are a Phoenix, rising from the postseason ashes. OK. It's corny. But they were done. Finished. "There is no tomorrow" the doomsday headline read Saturday in the Arizona Republic. "D'backs to the wall" it said a day earlier. Who can figure? On Saturday morning, Bob Brenly, the Diamondbacks' rookie manager, was the biggest idiot ever to pace the dugout, a Jimy Williams on dumb pills. The team's closer, 22-year-old Byung-Hyun Kim, was an offseason away from a major league scrap heap. On Saturday night, the Diamondbacks got a run in the bottom of the first. Whew. They weren't going to be shut out. They got three in the bottom of the second. Hey ... wait a minute, here. Then an eight-run third -- eight runs! -- and, what do you know, the Diamondbacks are jumping and by the end of the game they're actually mocking the New York Yankees, blaring New York, New York at Bank One Ballpark. Arizona won, 15-2, in what is known in baseball as a major league butt kicking. The Diamondbacks are not only alive, they are thriving. Brenly's back in favor, the crowd was actually calling for Kim by the end of the game, and now comes Game 7. A World Series Game 7, on Sunday night. Lots of people picked this thing to go the distance. But who figured Arizona would have had such an easy time at home (the Diamondbacks have outscored New York 28-3 in Phoenix)? That they'd blow those two in New York? That the Yankees would struggle against Brian Anderson and Miguel Batista? That Yankees ace Andy Pettitte would get ripped Saturday by the D'backs? Seven games, maybe. But like this? "It's going to be a lot of fun," Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, in a decidedly un-fun Yankees clubhouse, said of Game 7. "Game 7," said Arizona outfielder Reggie Sanders, who had four of Arizona's record 22 hits Saturday, "is where it's at." This is not just any Game 7, either. It's Roger Clemens of the Yankees against Schilling of Arizona, two 20-game winners, the sixth meeting of 20-game winners in Game 7 of a World Series. "This might be like being in the essay finals against Hemmingway," Schilling said, "or a paint-off against Picasso." Game 7s, in any sport, are special. In a World Series, though, they invoke images of Bill Mazeroski's home run in 1960 or Jack Morris' 10-inning shutout in 1991. Seven-game Series are classics, almost by definition. But figuring them out is as easy as figuring this one out. "You can play tremendous baseball one day and come out and stink up the joint the next day ...," said Brenly, who knows such things. There's never any way of telling. Back in 1960, before Mazeroski's Game 7, bottom-of-the-ninth home run won the Series for Pittsburgh, the Pirates had been creamed in Game 6, 12-0, by the Yankees. Doesn't mean anything. The home team has won every game in this Series, which many people would say makes this a Series that has held to form. But it doesn't mean a thing. The home team is 18-15 in seven-game World Series. The Diamondbacks have outscored the Yankees 34-12 in this Series. The Diamondbacks had 21 hits by the sixth inning on Saturday. The Diamondbacks are hitting .258 and their pitchers have a 1.93 ERA. New York is hitting .183 with a 4.58 ERA. The Series is tied. It all means nothing. The Diamondbacks were dead. Now they're not. "We never die," Sanders said. Game 7 is Sunday night. You figure it out. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
| |||||||||||||||||||||
