The 1998 Yankees by Jack Curry

Author:Jack Curry [CURRY, JACK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Serious and seasoned, John Flaherty was a catcher for the 1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Expansion teams are supposed to lose a lot. While Flaherty understood that reality, he was devoted to developing the best game plans to squelch an offense. The Rays were 63–99 that season, but Flaherty’s job was to find a batter’s weakness and try to help his pitchers exploit it.

That sounded like a smart approach, but, against the 1998 Yankees, it was fairly futile. There weren’t many weaknesses to attack in the deep Yankees’ lineup because their talented hitters were also tenacious and patient. The Yankees fouled off pitches, they didn’t swing at pitches that were inches off the plate, and they waited for strikes. If pitchers didn’t throw strikes, the Yankees’ batters would accept a walk and let a teammate do the damage.

“It was draining,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty, who grew up in West Nyack, New York, as a Thurman Munson fan and later played with the Yankees from 2003 to 2005, said that most teams have a soft landing spot in the lower third of the lineup. OK, Flaherty might say to his pitchers, you fought through those first seven hitters, but now there’s a couple of easier outs at the bottom of the order. With the Yankees, those easier outs didn’t exist.

“And that was because of Brosius,” Flaherty said. “You’d pitch to Derek, Bernie, and O’Neill and you’d think you’d have a place to catch your breath a bit. And you look up and Brosius is at the plate. When I think about that team, he’s actually the first guy I think about.”

Jeff Nelson, an astute reliever who watched the game like a scout, agreed.

“I think the 1998 team was probably the best team in the history of baseball,” Nelson said. “Look at who we had hitting one through nine. We had Brosius hitting eighth and ninth and he had 98 RBIs. That team battled pitchers. They’d foul pitches off and they’d get into deep counts. They weren’t afraid to hit with two strikes. That was one of the main recipes for success in 1998. They just wore down pitchers.”

Examples of this ferocious approach littered the Yankees’ schedule, with pitcher’s arms and earned runs averages getting bludgeoned.

On May 6, the Yankees defeated the Rangers, 15–13. Starter Bobby Witt threw 48 pitches and allowed seven runs in one and one-third innings. Tim Crabtree followed Witt and tossed 54 pitches while giving up four runs in one and two-third innings.

On May 24, the Yankees battered the Red Sox, 14–4. Bret Saberhagen uncorked 71 pitches while surrendering half of those runs and not lasting through the third inning. The next pitcher and the next victim was Ron Mahay and he was torched for five runs and needed 73 pitches to get though two innings.

Even when the Yankees lost, they made pitchers earn the win. That included the best pitchers too. Pedro Martínez and the Red Sox stifled the Yankees, 13–7, on May 31. But Martínez, who had been given an 11-run lead in the third, threw a whopping 130 pitches in five innings.

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