Gardner’s hustle puts Yankees in rightful place

ARLINGTON, Texas – The honest truth is, Brett Gardner(notes) has not a clue as to why he dived Friday night.

It just happened.

C.J. Wilson(notes) out of the corner of his eye, Jorge Cantu(notes) showing the baseball, the sound of his own footsteps being joined by Wilson’s, first base drawing nearer, it all clouds up in his head.

But there comes a moment, less than a moment really, when the steps aren’t quite right, when the body lean is perfect, when the desperation consumes him, when it just feels right.

And in a game that was set up over 6½ months, then played over nearly four hours, then knocked sideways in a half-inning, the four seconds Gardner required to skitter from batter’s box to first base turned the American League championship series on a finger snap.

He was the first of seven consecutive New York Yankees to reach base in the eighth inning Friday night, the first drop in a dam-break five runs that established – in case anyone was wondering – that, win or lose, this will be a week or so of baseball the Texas Rangers haven’t experienced before.

The Yankees, on the other hand, have been raised on this. Game 1 result: New York 6, Texas 5.

So, Gardner rolls over a slider and blows down the line, because a four-run deficit in the eighth is still the eighth, and nobody’s on the bus yet, and a baserunner, then two, then three, and eventually seven, means life.

Suddenly, Ron Washington’s running through his bullpen, and the grind-it-out Yankees are all over first-pitch fastballs, and Rangers outfielders can’t get a clean hop, and Mariano Rivera(notes) is warming up, and Jay-Z is on the CD player in the visitors’ clubhouse.

It happens that fast.

The Yankees aren’t the juggernaut they once were, but they still think like one. Their starting rotation won’t dominate, their bullpen didn’t come together until mid-summer, they hadn’t enough to win their own division, and yet they don’t take off so much as a pitch.

They wait. And they grind. And they don’t consider, can’t even fathom, that a game – particularly an October game – can be won on a three-run homer in the first inning, or with a five-run lead in the fourth.

See, there’s always a chance to put 10 men in the batter’s box in the eighth inning, against five different pitchers, two of whom might last a single pitch each. It can turn on a pitch or two, on a play, on the smallest among them running so hard down the line everything changes.

They’d come from behind in 48 of their 95 wins from April to October. They’d come from behind in nine of their 14 wins over the past two Octobers. It explains the heavy eyelids in their clubhouse afterward, why they were the least surprised 25 in the ballpark.

Make that 24. CC Sabathia(notes), who’d missed the strike zone with nearly half of his 93 pitches and didn’t pitch past the fourth inning, was in the clubhouse apologizing to teammates by the fifth.

“It deflated me,” Sabathia said. “Obviously, it didn’t deflate these guys. Man, that was unbelievable.”

It began from almost nothing. Less than nothing, even. Wilson was better than they were for seven innings and one batter. He led, 5-1. The Rangers were going to win their first home playoff game ever. The crowd waved its towels. The whole town was six outs from October momentum, knocking the Yankees on their butts, and believing.

Then Gardner was hitting this harmless bouncer by the first-base bag, and Cantu was holding the ball, and Wilson was, geez, he might not get there in time.

It was then that Gardner laid out for the base.

“Everything’s going so fast,” he said, “I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

The dirt exploded beneath him. His left hand found the base. And then Wilson’s spike found the back of his hand. The shoe left two wounds, a chunk that bubbled with bright red blood an hour later in the middle of Gardner’s hand, and a small nick near his third knuckle.

“I don’t know what size he wears,” Gardner said, speaking of Wilson’s shoe, holding up his hand. “I’m just glad he’s a little guy. I was thinking I’m glad CC wasn’t the one who stepped on me. Eh, just a couple scratches. It’s all right.”

Then, it happened. Derek Jeter(notes) doubled and Wilson was gone, ruing the bang-bang play at first, hoping he hadn’t started something that couldn’t be finished.

“That’s what he’s good at,” Wilson said of Gardner. That’s why he wears his pants up. He’s got fast calves. … He’s a legitimate deer.”

And the Yankees are a whole different animal, it seems, especially this time of year.

“It certainly was our ballgame, especially when you just need six outs,” Washington said. “We didn’t get them.”

Against almost anyone else, you line the field, turn on the lights, let the people in, and play baseball.

Against the Yankees, it’s different. They win a game and take a little piece of your heart with it.

There’s still plenty left of the ALCS. Cliff Lee(notes) hasn’t thrown a pitch. Neither has A.J. Burnett(notes). Nothing has been decided. Yet, you get the feeling the Yankees knew what was coming.

And now the Rangers do.