01:00 AM EDT on Monday, July 18, 2005

BOSTON -- As late as Saturday afternoon, the starting pitcher for the Yankees in last night's game was officially listed as "undecided."

The Yanks could just as well have said "undetermined," or, more accurately, "unknown."

Enter the unwanted -- at least by the Florida Marlins -- Al Leiter, who, to the delight of the Yankees and the dismay of the Red Sox, was all but unhittable last night.

Which, considering the way he'd pitched the first half of this season for the Marlins, bordered on the unbelievable.

The veteran lefthander, designated for assignment Thursday by the Marlins, was unruffled at finding himself on the mound in front of a sellout crowd at Fenway.

"It felt really good, being in a Yankee uniform, here, in this place," said Leiter, who said that he didn't feel all that good before the game started.

"I had a bad warmup," he said. "It wasn't good. I didn't begin to feel it until after striking out (Johnny) Damon and (David) Ortiz."

That was in the first inning, after which Leiter kept looking better and better, limiting the Sox to just three hits and one run in 6 1/3 innings, striking out a season-high eight batters while walking three.

It was a huge turnaround for a guy who had just one win in his last nine starts for Florida, where he had a 3-7 record, a 6.64 E.R.A., and serious control problems -- 60 walks, compared with just 52 strikeouts, in 80 innings.

"If there are moments in my career that define me," Leiter said, "it's when my back's against the wall. I like those moments. I like that nervous energy, that need for concentration, that it's a do-or-die situation."

Leiter has had a good career. He has won at least 10 games for seven straight seasons. He has finished .500 or better for 10 consecutive years. He earned World Series rings with Toronto in 1993 and the Marlins in '97. He pitched a no-hitter for Florida against the Rockies in 1996. Just last year with the Mets, he went 10-8, with a 3.21 E.R.A. that was 10th-best in the majors.

"I had a difficult time accepting that it was over for me, that I wasn't good enough," he said. "I have felt good, but I wasn't getting it done. As disappointing as my performance in Florida was, I knew I wasn't done."

Coming to the Yankees -- who are in desperate need of starting pitchers -- has given Leiter a fresh start in the place where his career began.

He made his major-league debut for the Yankees in 1987 and spent part of the next two years in New York. It had been 16 years and 82 days since his last start for the Yankees -- a loss to the Royals in Kansas City on April 26, 1989 -- but it'll be only four days until his next one, Friday in Anaheim against the Angels.

"Al Leiter knows how to win," New York manager Joe Torre said. "He's done it. He's pitched on championship clubs. He certainly gave us a lift tonight. Sunday's pitcher wasn't even on our team when we got (to Boston), so this was very big."

The big question with Leiter now is whether he can consistently throw strikes and stay ahead in the count. That was the difference in how he pitched for the Yankees, compared to the way he'd thrown the ball for the Marlins.

"Everything we'd heard," said Torre, "was that he was giving up a lot of walks, that he didn't have a lot of command. That was the only thing we were curious about. He knows how to pitch. He's not going to give in. That's the kind of attitude he has."

Leiter was in command last night from the outset.

"The difference," he said, "was my focus, my concentration, my belief and trust in my pitches, and maintaining a good, aggressive attitude. I was getting ahead (in the count) enough to where guys had to swing at pitches that were just off the plate.

"There's a big difference between going ball, ball, and then throwing a marginal pitch that a hitter can lay off, and throwing strike, strike, when the batter can't afford to let a pitch that's a little off the plate go by. I was doing that a lot more tonight than I had been the first half of the year."

That was obvious to Red Sox manager Terry Francona.

"I know he's had some command issues," Francona said. "That's probably why he's here. But he got ahead enough and, once he got ahead, he threw that cutter-slider out of the zone and we couldn't lay off it. He got ahead enough where even the ones that were balls, we were swinging at."

With Leiter's pitch count nearing 100 in the seventh inning, Yankees pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre inquired as to how he was feeling.

"Mel asked him," said Torre, "the last time he'd had this high a pitch count. Al said it was in his last start Sunday against the Cubs -- except it was in the third inning."

Leiter lasted just three innings in that start, by which time he already had walked five batters and given up six hits and six runs. Not surprisingly, he wound up with a loss.

Despite that, the Yankees had a deal arranged to get him the following day.

"We had a deal in place Monday," New York general manager Brian Cashman said last night, "but Mike Stanton wouldn't waive his no-trade clause, and it fell apart."

Meanwhile, the Yankees pitching staff was in tatters. Kevin Brown was on the disabled list -- although he will be activated in time to pitch tonight in Texas -- along with Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, and rookie righty Chien-Ming Wang.

Which was why, even though Leiter said last night that he thought Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein "had some interest" when the Marlins made him available, it was the Yankees who moved quickly to bring him back to New York, where his career began.

"I think it's apropos," said Leiter, "that it comes full circle."