Sept. 6 – Yankees 8, Indians 3
- Sal Maiorana
- Sep 6, 2017
- 3 min read
CLEVELAND – More I Hate The Yankee Hankee activity at Cleveland Stadium, though far fewer than the night before, and this time they didn’t work as the world was moved back onto its axis when the Yankees beat up on the hapless Indians.
The mistake by the lake, which was what Cleveland’s dilapidated stadium was called, could seat nearly 80,000 for baseball. Barely one-tenth of those seats were occupied, which prompted one Indians fan to moan, “We can’t even hate for more than one day.”
Some in the small crowd were waving the handkerchiefs, but the Yankees laughed it off and beat up on Indians starter Dennis Eckersley. They piled up 11 hits and two walks while scoring seven times within seven innings against the Eck, and that made a winner out of Dick Tidrow, who benefited from 3.2 innings of relief from rubber-armed and indefatigable Sparky Lyle.
Two of the hits off Eckersley were a three-run homer by Reggie Jackson, part of a four-RBI night for him, and a solo shot by Lou Piniella. That made 28 home runs off Eckersley in a year in which he would ultimately allow 31 in 247 innings. A decade later, during his nine-year rebirth as the Oakland A’s closer, a period which cemented his Hall of Fame resume, he gave up only 56 home runs in 637 innings.
“I’ve just been challenging hitters too much,” Eckersley said. “I’ve been around the plate too much and when you’re around the plate too much, you’re going to get hurt. It’s kind of embarrassing when you see the statistic. That’s a lot of dingers.”
Now in his third season, the only American League team the 22-year-old Eckersley had yet to beat was the Yankees – four losses in six starts.
The game was tied at 2-2 when Piniella went deep in the sixth inning. In the seventh, Eckersley was told to intentionally walk Graig Nettles with two outs and a man on second. Thurman Munson, clearly feeling a little disrespected by that, followed with a RBI single, and then Jackson went yard to blow it open. As Jackson returned to the dugout with Munson and Nettles, he gleefully pointed at a fan who had been heckling him all night.
Tidrow had to be bailed out by Lyle because of command issues. He gave up only five hits in 5.1 innings, but he walked six men. In his previous 10 games covering 32 innings, Tidrow had walked only five. Lyle wasn’t exactly sharp as he yielded six hits and two walks among the 18 batters he faced, but only one run scored while he was on the mound.
Even with this somewhat rocky outing, in his last 30 appearances Lyle had a 1.06 ERA and overall, he was now 12-4 with 22 saves and a 1.72 ERA in 119 innings over 61 games. You may never again see a relief pitcher’s stat line like that, and there was still nearly a month to go in the regular season.
“We’re finally playing the way you’d think we should by just looking at the lineup card,” said catcher Fran Healy. “The unseen key is the pitching we’ve gotten from Dick Tidrow and Ron Guidry. Good, dependable pitching is what you have to have in September.”
Comments