For all their powerful batters and the most prolific scoring lineup in baseball, the New York Yankees’ sluggers fell off a Cliff in the opening game of the World Series.
Cliff Lee, that is.
The confident Philadelphia southpaw struck out 10 without allowing a walk in pitching the defending World Series champions past the Yankees 6-1 on Wednesday in the first game of Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven championship final.
“To be successful at this level you have to be confident, go out there and think you are going to get everybody out,” Lee said. “I try not to go over the edge and rub things in and be cocky, but I definitely have confidence.”
The 31-year-old American fielded a hard-hit grounder behind his back in the eighth inning, then easily made the throw out to first, shrugging his shoulders as if it the remarkable play was nothing special while teammates laughed.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel was impressed by the fielding effort but more excited about Lee’s throwing, which silenced a team that produced 915 runs and 244 homers. The effort could earn Lee another start in game four on Sunday.
Providing the early run support to give the Phillies a boost was Chase Utley, the All-Star second baseman who hit solo home runs off Yankees starter C.C. Sabathia in the third and sixth innings to put Philadelphia on top.
Utley had been 0-for-7 for his career against Sabathia with five strikeouts before pounding him at Yankee Stadium, joining Yankee icon Babe Ruth as the only left-handed hitters with two homers in a Series game off a lefty pitcher.
“He works the count and he is patient at the plate,” Manuel said. “He finds ways to get on base.”
Utley reached base safely in his 26th consecutive playoff game, breaking the mark he shared with Baltimore’s Boog Powell.
“You try to put good at-bats together and see what happens,” Utley said. “I was able to squeak one over the fence early in the game. Obviously any time you can hit a home run it gives you confidence for the next time. So that was a good thing.”
Utley was as impressed with Lee as the Yankee batters who were baffled by the Philadelphia ace.
“He has been outstanding,” Utley said. “He works both side of the plate, mixes in breaking stuff and he is a competitor. I’m definitely glad he’s on our side.
■MARTINEZ CHARM FAILS
AFP, NEW YORK
On the eve of his latest bid to deny the New York Yankees a World Series crown, pitcher Pedro Martinez sought to make peace with the Bronx supporters who have booed him for years.
But the 38-year-old Dominican right-hander, former ace of the arch-rival Boston Red Sox, likely botched the charm offensive by saying: “I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium.”
The fabled ballpark played host to 26 World Series champions, the greatest success streak in US sport, and such Yankee legends as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.
All Martinez did was arouse the ire of the Yankee faithful, who figured to boo him yesterday when he took the mound for Philadelphia in the second World Series game at Yankee Stadium.
“Coming against the Yankees in a World Series, in a Phillies uniform, it’s just a special day,” said Martinez, who sat out the start of the season before joining the reigning World Series champion Phillies at mid-season.
Martinez, who last pitched in the World Series in 2004 with the Red Sox, is 12-13 with a 3.41 earned-run average in 38 career outings against the Yankees, most of them in emotional outings in the Bronx.
“With all the hype, maybe because I played for the Red Sox, is probably why you guys made it such a big deal every time I came in,” Martinez said in backing up his influence claim.
■SEX FOR TICKETS
AP, PHILADELPHIA
A Philadelphia woman charged with offering sex for World Series tickets says she’s embarrassed about her arrest, but did nothing wrong and is still hopeful of attending a game.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, so I’m not embarrassed about my actions. I’m embarrassed about how I was arrested,” Susan Finkelstein told reporters in a phone interview on Wednesday, a day after meeting at a suburban bar with an undercover police officer responding to an ad on Craigslist.
Finkelstein’s lawyer said his client was merely “a nice lady overcome with Phillies fever.”
She might have dropped double entendres in her Craigslist ad, but never explicitly offered sex, her lawyer William Brennan said.
Finkelstein, 43, wanted to take her husband to a game between her beloved Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees.
The self-described “buxom blonde” said she was simply trying to score tickets online, as she had in the past.
Over a few beers at a suburban bar, she told a police officer she needed two tickets, one for herself and one for her husband. No price had been discussed, and Finkelstein and her lawyer stopped short of recounting specifics of what was said before several officers sitting at a nearby table came to arrest her.
Finkelstein told WPVI-TV she was looking to get a deal on tickets.
“I was hoping to maybe meet someone, and talk, and bat my eyelashes and maybe get some tickets,” she said.
Finkelstein faces a preliminary hearing on Dec. 3. On the bright side, she’s been offered a pair of tickets to a weekend game in Philadelphia, courtesy of a radio station and car dealer.
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