Rangers leave the door ajar for the Yankees

NEW YORK – Waiting again on the kill shot, the Texas Rangers packed up for home Wednesday night.

They’d leave behind the nice folks here, the cool wind that blew to center field, and the empty seats scattered across Yankee Stadium, all dressed as despair.

Oh, they’d say they expected the fight from the New York Yankees, them being world champions and so talented and proud. But then Game 5 started, and they had to know this was their time to win.

The crowd, such as it was, seemed here to wave goodbye. The vibe had gone flat overnight. The Rangers had blown out the Yankees twice, had turned up brilliant in every pivotal moment, and if the Rangers were going to insist, well, maybe the Yankees would’ve come to the conclusion this was not their year.

That’s not how it ended. Not yet.

CC Sabathia(notes) was game but imprecise. Mark Teixeira(notes) slung his arms over the dugout rail, done in by a blown hamstring. Lance Berkman(notes) replaced him in the lineup. That meant Marcus Thames(notes) would bat fifth, just ahead of Berkman, who hadn’t hit left-handers all season and was forced into more at-bats against Rangers lefty C.J. Wilson(notes).

The Yankees hadn’t pitched, they hadn’t hit. They were down, three games to one. Their No. 3 hitter, helpless as he was at the plate most of the series, was gone. The bullpen looked incapable.

They don’t grow opportunities much riper than those, not this time of year.

And yet in their clubhouse the Rangers watched their bats being rolled to a waiting truck, and owner Chuck Greenberg stared at a replay of Game 5 in a side room, and six lockers from Wilson, Cliff Lee(notes) drew one day closer to pitching again in this American League Championship Series, which resumes Friday night in Arlington, Texas.

The game had all but begged the Rangers to put away the Yankees, to dance on their field, to soak their ballpark in a half-century’s worth of hardball torture. Instead, the Rangers lost for the third time in four put-away games this October. They put 11 runners on base against Sabathia and plated two of them. Handed 17 at-bats with men on base, they had three hits. With runners in scoring position, they were 1 for 9.

[Photos: See more of Rangers pitcher C.J. Wilson]

Though they out-hit the Yankees, 13-9, they were outscored, 7-2. Required in the second inning to throw a ball 40 feet to nail a runner (loosely speaking; it was Jorge Posada(notes)) at the plate, Wilson threw it 60. Down four runs in the seventh inning, when slight hope remained, Elvis Andrus(notes) was picked off second base, known today in Texas as getting oneself “Kinslered.”

Their manager, Ron Washington, had stood on the infield grass before Game 3 and said the key to beating the Yankees here was to keep them in the ballpark. Rangers pitchers allowed one home run in their first 20 innings at Yankee Stadium, and they won games three and four. In the next six innings, the Yankees hit three, two in the third against Wilson.

Wilson said he hated the mound and lost his mechanics, after allowing six runs in five innings.

“At that point,” he admitted, “I didn’t really have that much more to offer.”

Andrus said he hadn’t seen Kerry Wood’s(notes) quicker inside move to second base, after seeing the slower one 30 seconds earlier.

“The thing about Elvis,” Washington said, “when his game is flowing, he thinks he’s invincible.”

Andrus lowered his head. He’d been picked off with Josh Hamilton(notes) at the plate and Vladimir Guerrero(notes) in the on-deck circle.

“After I got caught,” he said, “I thought, ‘Wah, I should have let him hit.’ ”

The hitters said Sabathia found a way to survive, though he threw 112 pitches in six innings.

“Just didn’t work out,” Michael Young(notes) said. “Just didn’t work out today.”

They didn’t have a day as bad as former Yankee Paul O’Neill. He put on his charcoal suit Wednesday morning, his lavender shirt and purple-ish print tie, came to the ballpark and discovered he was dressed just like Craig Sager. So, for the Rangers, it could have been worse.

Had any of them come out for Yankees batting practice, they’d have seen one of the Yankees on the right-field line, practicing his golf swing. Almost that time of year, after all.

That said, the Rangers haven’t had a lot of time to figure this out. Four days ago, they won their first home playoff game ever. Four days before that, they eliminated the Tampa Bay Rays (in their third stab at it).

From an organizational history of almost no significance, they remain one win from the World Series. And that’s pretty cool. In fact, it feels so good they’d extend the vibe for another couple days, turns out.

Except, now they’ll play a game they probably didn’t need to play. And if the worst happens there, they’ll turn again to Lee in a Game 7, who then wouldn’t be available until Game 2 of the World Series. Assuming, you know, he beat Andy Pettitte(notes) again.

“They did what the Yankees do,” Rangers outfielder Jeff Francoeur(notes) said. “And we had a lot of opportunities to do something today. You know the game of baseball; sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”