King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The Yankees and Red Sox are off to a wild start. Surprised? Plus: That other series, Astros vs. Cardinals. And: Baseball vs. debates -- the readers write.

Oct. 13, 2004 | OK, so the American League Championship Series is going pretty much the way everyone expected so far.

Hideki Matsui drove in five runs, helping to chase Red Sox ace Curt Schilling from Game 1 after three innings, and Mike Mussina took an 8-0 lead and a perfect game into the seventh inning for the Yankees, but the Sox rallied for five runs in that inning and two in the eighth and had the tying run at third with two outs and Kevin Millar up.

Mariano Rivera came out of the bullpen to get Millar to pop up for the third out. Rivera had spent the morning in Panama at the funeral of two relatives who were killed in an accident at his home. He arrived at Yankee Stadium a half hour after the game started.

After he got Millar and was given two insurance runs by a Bernie Williams double in the bottom of the eighth, Rivera gave up two hits in the ninth and had to face 2003 batting champ Bill Mueller as the tying run with one out. He got Mueller to hit into a game-ending double-play.

Yeah, who didn't see all that coming?

Game 1 did give us what we expected in the sense that you didn't dare turn your back on it. It helped that when the game was 6-0 after three and then 8-0 after six Mussina was not only perfect, he was mowing down the Red Sox in such a fashion that a perfect game seemed at least possible, even if it's never exactly likely.

In the fourth inning he struck out the side looking, Johnny Damon, Mark Bellhorn and Manny Ramirez all going down with the weight of the bat on their shoulders. Mussina then fanned David Ortiz and Millar to start the fifth.

Damon, Bellhorn, Ramirez, Ortiz and Millar aren't exactly Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons and Cronin, but they're pretty good. Damon, Ramirez and Ortiz are among the best hitters in the league, and there's a little more on the line in a playoff game than an All-Star Game.

But even without Mussina's dazzling performance this game would have been worth sticking with because, cliché warning, no lead is safe against the Red Sox. They don't exactly laugh at an 8-0 deficit, but they don't throw their hands up either. They know a lineup that's averaged 5.9 runs a game through the end of the divisional series will get its licks in, and it did. It only took the best October reliever in history to stop the scoring.

Next page: Now it's Pedro Martinez's turn. Plus: Astros vs. Cardinals. And: Baseball vs. debates