{"id":38959,"date":"2025-05-19T14:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T14:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/38959\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T14:44:09","slug":"2000-yankees-diary-a-little-bit-of-everything-in-cleveland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/38959\/","title":{"rendered":"2000 Yankees Diary: A little bit of everything in Cleveland"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you go the ballpark, you never know what you\u2019re going to expect. For fans at Jacobs Field a quarter-century ago today, they would witness one of the most action-packed games of the season. The marathon game\u2014which in this definitively pre-pitch clock era lasted three hours and 45 minutes despite not going into extra innings\u2014saw 18 runs cross the plate, 23 hits, 18 strikeouts, 15 walks, three errors, and nine pitchers take the mound (which, in 2000, was a rare feat). Fortunately for the 2000 Yankees<\/a>, the Bombers were the ones who, at the end of the day, found themselves on top of this whirlwind.<\/p>\n

May 19: Yankees<\/a> 11, Cleveland 7 (box score<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Record: 24-14 (2nd place, 1.0 GB in AL East)<\/p>\n

Cleveland got on the board first with a small rally against Yankees starter Andy Pettitte in the bottom of the first. Roberto Alomar led off the frame with a double, would advance to third two batters later on a Travis Fryman groundout for the second out of the inning, and scored on a Manny Ramirez single. Pettitte then fanned Jim Thome for the third out of the inning … only catcher Jorge Posada could not come up with it cleanly, allowing him to reach first on the strikeout. While the Yankees were able to prevent further damage, it was an early sign of the type of wild and wacky game to come.<\/p>\n

The Yanks went on to knot it back up in the top of the second, but in truth, the inning presented a missed opportunity. Posada grounded a single through the right side to lead off the inning before a pair of walks loaded the bases with one out. Alfonso Soriano, starting at short for the injured Derek Jeter and a season away from his AL Rookie of the Year bid, laced a line drive into center field; unfortunately, his counterpart in the nine hole, Jolbert Cabrera, made a sliding grab for the second out of the inning, and the runners were forced to scamper back to their bases. While Chuck Knoblauch grounded a single into the outfield to score Posada, Cleveland was able to avoid the big inning.<\/p>\n

After a clean bottom of the second and top of the third, Cleveland retook the lead. After getting Omar Vizquel to ground out to start the inning, Pettitte walked four consecutive batters, handing Cleveland back their lead. While he was able to avoid further damage by getting Sandy Alomar Jr. to ground into an inning-ending double play, it was a testament to just how little command Pettitte had on his pitches that night.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for No. 46, the Yankees\u2019 bats responded in a big way in the top of the fourth. Dave Burba issued a free pass to Shane Spencer to start the inning, and Ricky Led\u00e9e followed that up with a single. After Scott Brosius struck out and Soriano grounded out, Knoblauch worked a walk of his own off Burba to load the bases. Bernie Williams then drilled a high fly ball to left field, and while it did not go out, left fielder Richie Sexson wasn\u2019t exactly as nimble with the glove as Cabrera.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The ball went over his head and hit the wall, clearing the bases. A Paul O\u2019Neill double then brought Bernie home, and a Tino Martinez single brought home O\u2019Neill. Just like that, the Yankees found themselves with a 6-2 lead.<\/p>\n

Cleveland answered in a big way in the bottom of the inning, however. Sexson led off the inning with a solo shot,, atoning for his shoddy glovework. Cabrera then reached on an E6 by Soriano and Roberto Alomar worked a walk to put two runners on for Ramirez. The future Red Sox<\/a> left fielder showed a preview of the damage he would do to the Bombers later in his career with a towering three-run shot that spelled the end of Pettitte\u2019s evening. The score was now tied.<\/p>\n

Once again, though, the Yankees had their pitcher\u2019s back. With one out in the fifth, Soriano sparked another rally with a double, coming around to score on a Knoblauch single. Two batters later, O\u2019Neill clubbed a two-run homer, giving the Yankees a 9-6 advantage.<\/p>\n

Cleveland cut that lead to 9-7 the following inning, courtesy of a pair of walks and an Alomar single with two outs against reliever Ramiro Mendoza. Led\u00e9e got that run back, and then another for good measure too, with a two-run shot in the top of the sixth, bringing the score to 11-7.<\/p>\n

At which point, rather surprisingly, the score would stay. The bottom of the sixth went quietly, as did the final three frames \u2014 a vast difference from how the first half of the game went. In fact, it was in this latter part of the game that the pitching staffs put up some of their numbers, with a combined nine strikeouts between the two sides from the seventh through the ninth. Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton recorded the final seven outs for the Yankees, putting the finishing touches on a wild night at the Jake.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you go the ballpark, you never know what you\u2019re going to expect. For fans at Jacobs Field…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[196,3259,5,13395,135,3253,13396,439,181,176,12851,4,1690,62,2548,2547,214,3258,142,3260],"class_list":{"0":"post-38959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-a","9":"tag-alley","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-bit","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-diary","14":"tag-everything","15":"tag-exclude-from-stn-video","16":"tag-front-page","17":"tag-in","18":"tag-little","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-new-york","21":"tag-new-york-yankees","22":"tag-newyork","23":"tag-newyorkyankees","24":"tag-of","25":"tag-pinstripe","26":"tag-yankees","27":"tag-yankees-history-trivia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114535036711461412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}