Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Yankees 1998 Tracker: Game 45

Paul O'Neill.


From now until the end of the season, we will be tracking the pace of the current Yankees with the 1998 World Championship team that won 114 games in the regular season.

Through 45 Games:


2018: 31-14

Tuesday night: Texas Rangers 6, Yankees 4

Texas scored five runs in the first two innings off Yankee starter Domingo German.

That was all Texas ace Cole Hamels would need, as he went seven innings, allowing two runs on four hits and two walks, with seven strikeouts, to improve to 3-4 on the season with a 3.38 ERA.

Austin Romine hit a two-run homer in the eighth to pull the Yankees within 6-4, which was the final.

1998: 35-10

May 26, 1998: Yankees 7, Chicago White Sox 5

This was the 1998 Yankees' ninth win in their last 10 games.

The White Sox took a 2-1 lead in this one in the second inning when Robin Ventura hit a two-run home run off Andy Pettitte.

The Yankees tied it in the fifth, and took in the lead in the seventh against Chicago reliever Keith Foulke, when Tim Raines led off with a double and scored on a groundout from Scott Brosius.

Chicago loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh against Pettitte and Jeff Nelson, and back-to-back sacrifice flies from Frank Thomas and Albert Belle gave them a 4-3 edge.

The big blow came in the top of the eighth when Paul O'Neill hit a three-run homer off Foulke to make it 6-4 Yankees.

Mike Cameron homered to lead off the bottom of the eighth off Nelson to pull Chicago within 6-5, but a Dale Sveum RBI single in the top of the ninth got that run right back, and the Yankees held on for a 7-5 win.

Mariano Rivera earned his 10th save of the season, Nelson got the win to improve to 2-1 on the season, and Foulke took the loss for Chicago to drop to 1-1.

This was Foulke's second year in the majors, having come up with San Francisco in 1997 and being traded to the White Sox during that season. He stayed in Chicago until 2002, then went to Oakland for one season, and went to Boston in 2004, and he was the closer on that World Championship team. He stayed in Boston until 2006, and then went back to Oakland in 2008, where he spent one season to finish his career.

Where they stand: The 2018 Yankees (31-14) dropped a game off the pace of the 1998 Yankees (35-10), and are now four games behind in the race to 114.

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