The feel-good vibe of a satisfying victory can be a wonderful intoxicant. That explains a lot of it, no? The Yankees can go weeks at a time without seeming to get a meaningful hit and then two lasers with the bases loaded four innings apart can shoo those memories, pasted over with a refreshing burst of new.
And so it is that one fresh-faced kid and one exhausted veteran can combine to deliver you through the day, can throttle the sloppy Rays and their over-caffeinated overmanager, Joe Maddon, 7-5, can allow you to think all is well, calm has been restored, normalcy has returned.
“He’s been doing this for a long time,” Joe Girardi said of Vernon Wells, who had been 9-for-his-last-90 and then crushed a two-out double in the bottom of the seventh inning to turn a one-run deficit into a two-run lead.
“Another big day,” Girardi said of Zoilo Almonte, a hero of spring training who not so long ago was considered organizational filler and now can be dubbed Puig East after igniting the Yankees with a two-run single in the third.
It was another big day for the Yankees, another day clicked off the calendar with a win, at a time when every win is sacrosanct in the suddenly cozy AL East. The Blue Jays won again in Toronto, 10 in a row for them, and suddenly every team in the division is at .500 or better.
Suddenly stealing any win you can isn’t just a luxury but an imperative.
Which explains why, long before Almonte and Wells teamed up to foil Maddon’s overwrought playbook, the Yankees had already had a good day. Because 2 1/2 hours before CC Sabathia ever threw a pitch in anger, there, sitting on his familiar stool in the back of the clubhouse, was Derek Jeter.
“Are you here for Old-Timers’ Day?” someone asked him.
“That’s not funny,” Jeter said, though he smiled broadly.
Jeter still is a few weeks away from taking his place at shortstop, from resuming his daily presence as the Yankees’ captain and adding some punch to the team’s batting order. But just seeing him — and listening to him — it looked and sounded like a thousand other days from the past 17 1/2 years.
The Captain, back in the house. Holding court.
“It’s been going as good as it can go,” Jeter said of the rehab of both his original leg injury and the one that stalled his comeback hopes.
He was here, he said, “to break things up and also to be around the team,” though, kidding aside, it probably is not a terrible thing for the most famous contemporary Yankee to be on hand today when the Yankees open the door to their rich cast of yesterday.
Still, in the same way his captaincy isn’t entirely ceremonial, neither was his presence. As well as the Yankees have played in the face of so many injuries, as sturdy as they have been able to keep their professional quarters, they are going to need an infusion of talent at some point — a Teixeira here, a Granderson there, maybe even an appearance from special guest star Alex Rodriguez.
And, of course, Jeter.
“It’s tedious,” Jeter said of a life absent baseball, filled with rehabilitation. “I’ve been doing this since November. It gets pretty old.”
He has been here before, detached from the team, but he was a kid then, Opening Day 2003, when he hurt his shoulder in a collision at third base with Jays catcher Ken Huckaby in Toronto. Those 36 games he missed probably felt like an eternity to a 28-year-old. That was then.
“That,” he said, “was nothing compared to this. This has been …”
He paused, searched, found the word he was looking for.
“Frustrating,” he said.
But even that was said with a smile. Jeter can see the reflection, if not the actual light, at the end of this inactive tunnel, and the Yankees can see it as well. The Yankees would like to have their captain back. What they need more is their leadoff hitter, who has waited nine months to collect hit No. 3,305 and beyond. And as much as he may enjoy the easy pace of life in Tampa-St. Pete …
“I live there,” he said, “but I don’t like living there during the season.”
He’s in a New York state of mind, which is precisely where the Yankees need him to be. Sooner the better.