Wallace Matthews, ESPN Staff Writer 10y

Rapid Reaction: Yankees 9, Red Sox 5

BOSTON -- Derek Jeter's farewell to baseball was brief, effective and relatively satisfying: An impressive pregame ceremony, a good first-inning at-bat, an RBI single of a uniquely Jeterian variety in the third, and a graceful exit from the stage.

Unfortunately, there was still two-plus hours of meaningless baseball to be played after that, and the Yankees held on to win a classically sloppy Fenway Park game, 9-5, just so no one could say Jeter's team let him down on his final day.

But the day, or at least the portion that he was a part of, belonged to Jeter, as Fenway was transformed into Yankee Stadium north. Jeter's day was less than hour long -- the first pitch was at 1:39 p.m. and his final exit came at 2:26 p.m. -- but in its own way, perfect for its lack of fuss. In five years, we'll catch up with him in Cooperstown.

G'night everybody! Jeter's playing career ended at 2:26 p.m., and in a most appropriate fashion, on a high bouncer to third base that he beat out for an infield single, the 3,465th hit of his fabulous career in the third inning. For the record, it came on a 1-2 pitch, a 93-mph two-seam fastball from Clay Buchholz. Red Sox third baseman Garin Cecchini fielded the ball with his bare hand, but the ball squirted out of his hand before he could get off a throw. Official scorer Mike Shalin wisely scored it a hit. The single scored Ichiro (who had a two-run triple) from third and gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead. But in more pressing news, Jeter was replaced at first by pinch-runner Brian McCann, loser of a pregame outfield footrace to Mark Teixeira. The game stopped for a couple of minutes as Jeter shook hands with McCann and Buchholz, waved his helmet to every section of the park and then hugged everyone of his teammates in a receiving line in front of the Yankees' dugout.

The final numbers: Jeter's final season ended with a .256 batting average, his lowest for a full season, with four home runs and 50 RBIs. Jeter appeared in 145 games (130 at shortstop), and had 149 hits this season, also a career low for a full season. He ends his career with a .3095 batting average, which rounds up to .310. Jeter also wound up playing more games (153) at Fenway Park than any other Yankee in history, surpassing Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle, whose career also ended here in 1968.

Really? On Jeter Day? Jemile Weeks became one of the few Red Sox players to get booed in Fenway Park for robbing a Yankee when his leaping catch in the first inning took away a Jeter single.

No pine in Pineda: In his first appearance at Fenway since the infamous Pine Tar Game on April 23, which was followed by a 10-day suspension and more than three months on the disabled list with a shoulder strain, Michael Pineda was overpowering Sunday, holding the Red Sox to three hits over 6 1/3 innings, walked none and struck out 10. His performance may get overlooked in the aftermath of Jeter's retirement, but there's no disputing the success of his return to action, pine tar suspension notwithstanding. Pineda finished up 5-5 but with a 1.89 ERA and an incredible strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly 8.5-to-1, having struck out 59 and walked only seven all season.

Seventh-inning stretched: There was an extended break between halves of the seventh inning, first due to Ronan Tynan's -- remember him? -- overlong rendition of "God Bless America," and then by a tasteful, fingerpicked version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," performed on acoustic guitar by none other than Yankees legend Bernie Williams.

Heroes not named Jeter: Ichiro Suzuki (two-run triple), Jose Pirela (two-run double), John Ryan Murphy (RBI single), Brett Gardner (RBI double), Chase Headley (RBI single), Austin Romine (RBI double).

Welcome to Secondary Market Park: A lot of Red Sox fans must have made a fortune selling their tickets for this one, because Fenway was packed with Yankees fans for Jeter's last game. So much so that a chant of "Let's Go Yankees" thundered through the place when the Yankees got runners to second and third in the third inning, with little to no resistance from the handful of Red Sox fans who bothered to show up. And as soon as Jeter left the game in the third inning, so did much of the crowd.

Tomorrow: No game. (No kidding). Yankees manager Joe Girardi will give his farewell state of the Yankees address at noon, and then the A-Rod watch begins. See you all throughout the winter, and thanks for reading.

^ Back to Top ^