Indians Leave the Yankees Bugged Out

Oct 06, 12:40 AM

Current Headlines: CLEVELAND _ The team that scored by the bunches in Game 1 had to be a pest in Game 2.

And get some help from pests.

Mother Nature provided the Indians late-inning assistance that came in the most bizarre of ways. There was no explaining the eighth-inning swarm that upset the New York Yankees so much, but the end result was a 2-1 Indians win in 11 innings Friday night at Jacobs Field.

The Indians now head to New York for Game 3 on Sunday with a 2-0 series lead.

What a game.

Travis Hafner ended it with a bases-loaded single in the 11th.

Fausto Carmona was nearly unhittable in nine innings, a performance that had his teammates marveling. Carmona gave up three hits and struck out Alex Rodriguez swinging three times. Not that the New York types would notice that.

The only blemish was a third-inning home run by Melky Cabrera. Other than that, Carmona had the Yankees flailing or pounding the ball into the ground.

Problem was the Indians went six innings in a row with a runner on second or third and failed to get the tying run home.

But then help came from above _ in one of the smallest life forms known to all of humanity.

Bugs.

Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. Nobody really counted.

The Associated Press consulted an insect specialist, who decided they were midges, come from Canada to rescue the Indians.

Whatever.

Down they came from somewhere, to swarm around the Yankees in the bottom of the eighth. Rookie pitcher Joba Chamberlain got sprayed before and during the inning with some kind of repellent.

Same with the Yankees infielders.

But the bugs were resilient. They kept coming.

And an inning took place with Chamberlain annoyed and Yankees infielders, especially Derek Jeter, waving their arms at the swarms around them.

But the bugs were relentless.

And it sure looked like they _ umm, well _ bugged Chamberlain.

Because Chamberlain was all over the plate, and the team that could not get a run when it had hits in inning after inning got a run thanks to a four-pitch walk, a wild pitch, a bunt and another wild pitch. That enabled Grady Sizemore to come all the way around the bases and tie the game.

This was quite a rally.

And another one started when Chamberlain hit Victor Martinez and walked Ryan Garko, but Jhonny Peralta struck out to end the inning.

Carmona, meanwhile, pitched with the same bugs and buzzed through the swarm and the Yankees. For whatever reason, the Indians were not bugged by the bugs.

"I don't know about them," Kenny Lofton said. "You'd have to ask them. All I can say is I was fine with it."

"They were all over the place," Sizemore said. "You just try to focus, block everything out."

"It was bothering them so much, I tried not to show it," third baseman Casey Blake said.

Yankees manager Joe Torre conceded that the bugs bothered Chamberlain. He said his pitcher had trouble seeing.

"That was really tough," catcher Jorge Posada said. "They were everywhere and they just came out of nowhere. They were worse at the mound. For some reason, they were all around the mound."

The same bugs were swarming when Carmona pitched, though, and he had no problems in the eighth and ninth. In those innings, Carmona had four ground-ball outs and two strikeouts _ the last one Rodriguez, who flailed at strike three twice with a runner on second base.

Carmona said through an interpreter that he was not going to allow anything or anybody to distract him.

He didn't.

Because of that, the Indians were able to win a game when they went 1-for-their-first-17 at-bats with runners in scoring position. The one hit was a second-inning single by Lofton, but Peralta was thrown out as he tried to score.

From there, it was miss this chance, miss that one.

Until the eighth, when the bugs and fate seemed to descend on the Yankees at the same time.

"I've never seen anything like that before, especially coming on the scene for one inning like that," Torre said.

Divine intervention? That's probably a bit much. But it was quite a scene.

One that probably had Yankees owner George Steinbrenner apoplectic.

For the Indians, a season that started in a blizzard and snow continues because of a plague of insects.

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(c) 2007, Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio).

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