Coming off a series win over Baltimore, the 2000 Yankees opened up a three-game set with another division rival as the Devil Rays visited the Bronx. On a warm Monday night, we got an intriguing pitching matchup: on one side, Andy Pettitte, a left-hander in his prime trying to re-establish himself as one of the game’s best, and on the other Dwight Gooden, a fading former star trying wring a few more quality innings out of his right arm
The Yankees were familiar with Gooden, who had spent the 1996 and 1997 seasons with the team (and indeed, Gooden would soon return later in the 2000 season after being released by Tampa Bay). That familiarity may have come in handy, as the Yankees had no issues wearing Gooden down.
May 8: Yankees 6, Devil Rays 3 (box score)
Record: 21-9 (3.0 GA in AL East)
The Yankees wasted little time in getting to Gooden, who didn’t appear to have the best of his already diminished stuff. The right-hander labored through a 33-pitch first inning, which included three walks and no swings and misses; Gooden was fooling no one.
After walks to Ricky Ledée and Bernie Williams put two on, Tino Martinez opened the scoring with a long three-run home run:
It was Tino’s fourth of the year, and the Yankees led 3-0.
Pettitte, however, was shaky early on as the Devil Rays hung in there, stringing together three straight singles to open the second inning. Pettitte teetered, but found a way to at least avoid a huge inning, inducing a run-scoring groundout from Bubba Trammell and a sac fly from Mike Difelice that cut the lead to 3-2.
That lead wouldn’t survive the third. Gerald Williams led off with a single, and after retiring the next two batters, Pettitte surrendered a high fly ball off the bat of Jose Canseco. It found the wall in left-center, and Williams raced home from first to tie the score.
But the Yankees kept working Gooden. The veteran erased Paul O’Neill’s third-inning single thanks to a strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play, and worked out of a two-on, none-out jam in the fourth thanks a double play ball from Shane Spencer, but the Yankees finally landed another punch in the fifth.
Leading off the inning, Clay Bellinger smoked a high fastball from Gooden to center, with the ball carrying over the 408-foot sign for a home run:
After another walk to Ledée put a runner on, O’Neill got a breaking ball in the zone and hammered it into the short porch in right:
That would end Gooden’s night, as he departed having allowing six runs on six hits and four walks in 4.1 innings. Gooden would make just three more starts as a member of the Devil Rays before signing on with the Yankees in June.
Replacing Gooden was Jim Morris, the left-hander whose story was dramatized in the 2002 film The Rookie. An abridged version of the tale: Morris was drafted by the Yankees in 1982, but saw his career derailed by injuries, retiring in 1989 to become a teacher and baseball coach. He tried out for the Devil Rays in 1999 at the age of 35 at the behest of his students, and found he still had life in his arm, and made his major-league debut that year.
Morris retired Williams on a groundout, and retired Martinez on a fly ball to right, before being replaced by Cory Lidle. Those would be the final outs recorded by Morris in his major-league career.
After the early speed bump, Pettitte mostly settled in, even if this wasn’t his finest start. The Devil Rays put a runner in scoring position in the fourth, sixth, and seventh innings against Pettitte, but stranded each, with Pettitte ultimately working 6.2 innings of three-run ball, striking out four and scattering nine hits.
Jason Grimsley got the final out of the seventh and pitched a scoreless eighth before giving way to Mariano Rivera. If the closer was rattled after blowing the save the previous day, he didn’t show it, retiring the Devil Rays on seven pitches on three batted balls that didn’t leave the infield.
It was already Rivera’s 12th save of the year as the Yankees maintained a three-game lead in the AL East. For the most part, the state of the team was strong, and the Yankees had to be encouraged that Pettitte, now with a 3.57 ERA to his name, was bouncing back from a somewhat disappointing 1999 campaign.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.