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Hafner Delivers In 11th As Indians, Bugs Bite Yankees

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By TOM WITHERS The Associated Press

Published: October 6, 2007

Updated: 10/06/2007 01:11 am

CLEVELAND - Swat! Take that, New York Yankees.

Helped by a freakish invasion of bombarding bugs that rattled rookie reliever Joba Chamberlain in the eighth inning, the Indians rallied to beat the Yankees 2-1 in 11 innings to take a 2-0 lead in their AL playoff series.

Travis Hafner's bases-loaded single with two outs in the 11th scored Kenny Lofton with the winner.

Lunacy. Surreal. Hitchcockian. Call it whatever you'd like. October baseball has rarely witnessed something like this.

'I'd never seen anything like it,' Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. 'It's like somebody let them loose ... just when you think you've seen it all.'

With bugs sticking to his sweaty neck, Chamberlain threw a wild pitch in the eighth that gave Cleveland the tying run. Three innings later, the Indians won it.

'They bugged me, but you've got to deal with it,' Chamberlain said.

Umpire crew chief Bruce Froemming said he never considered stopping the game.

'It was just a little irritation,' he said. 'We've had bugs before. I've seen bugs and mosquitoes since I started umpiring. It might not be a perfect scenario.

'Within about 45 minutes, basically they were gone. There was just about a 10-minute period where everybody was lathering up,' he said.

By the end of the night, the Indians were swarming Hafner and heading to New York looking for a sweep.

'I don't feel safe at all, though,' first baseman Ryan Garko said. 'I mean, it's the Yankees.'

Lofton, a gnat-like nuisance to the Yankees so far in this series, walked on four pitches to lead off the 11th against Luis Vizcaino. Franklin Gutierrez failed twice to get down a sacrifice before hitting a single.
Casey Blake moved the runners up with a bunt before the Yankees walked Grady Sizemore to load the bases. Rookie Asdrubal Cabrera missed his chance to be a hero by popping up right in front of the plate, but Hafner delivered.

Cleveland's designated hitter lined a single on a 3-2 pitch to right-center - making Cleveland 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position - and he was mobbed by his teammates as an exhausted crowd of 44,732 towel-waving fans celebrated a win they'll talk about for years to come.

A day after the Indians slugged their way to a 12-3 win, Fausto Carmona and the Yankees' Andy Pettitte put pitching back into the series.

New York finished with three hits, all off Carmona during his nine spectacular innings. Rafael Perez went two innings for the win.

Game 3 will be Sunday at Yankee Stadium, with Jake Westbrook trying to pitch Cleveland to a sweep against Roger Clemens.

The final four innings were like a low-budget, late-night horror flick. Call it: The Bugs Who Ate The Yankees.

'You could see them when you looked,' Yankees manager Joe Torre said. 'It was like blankets of stuff out there.'

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