Bronx, N.Y., May 14, 2004 — Sometimes you go to a ballgame, and get to see a dominating pitching performance overcome a similar effort by the opposing hurler, or perhaps just a struggling offense. Sometimes your pitchers can’t get anyone out, but the lineup puts together dynamic and fruitful rallies, and you go home a winner because your guys simply outscored the visiting nine. Certainly most games feature a combination of small things performed well, where you pitch a little bit, the offense succeeds often enough, and your team survives because of a concentrated group effort.

Friday night’s 9-5 victory over the Mariners was a case of none of the above. Miike Mussina took the mound against the same team he had dominated last weekend in his best performance of the year. And the offense had played well of late, with the steady Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez carrying much of the load (now that the Bombers need to survive a few days without Jorge Posada in the lineup) and Ruben Sierra lashing balls that have caromed off virtually every outfield wall in the Stadium, and carried over a few.

But the keys to Friday night’s success seemed to be that Mussina would let the Mariners swing hard and line shots all over the diamond until they tired, while the Yankee offense tripped over itself until the guys learned to place their bats on their shoulders and leave them there. Mussina whiffed but two M’s last weekend in dominating them; Friday night one could have been fooled into thinking the Kyocera strikeout counters that adorn the loge facade down both the left and right field corners were malfunctioning; they were stuck on zero.

Ichiro Suzuki smacked Mike’s second pitch of the night off the right field wall for a double. Moose almost wriggled off that hook, but for the one-out sac fly on a 1-2 pitch the ageless Edgar Martinez stroked to plate the Seattle right fielder. But Mike got lucky this night, as Mariners starter Gil Meche’s performance was abominable. He allowed a Bernie Williams one-out single and an A-Rod drive off the left center field wall. But Williams appeared too tentative watching the play, and broke too late to score. Meche accepted Bernie’s generosity both in holding up then, and further when he was nailed at the plate on Sierra’s ensuing bouncer to Dave Hansen at first. The slim Seattle 1-0 lead seemed quite a bit safer, and the Yankee rally dead on arrival.

Well, sort of. The home-team bats did fall quiet, not stroking another safety until Tony Clark, subbing for a banged-up Giambi, singled leading off the fourth. But it was of small consequence, because Meche imploded. After almost escaping the first due to Bernie’s misdadventures in base-running, the Seattle righty proceeded to walk the next four Yankees, forcing in three runs. New Jersey native Ron Villone came on and retired the next eight Yanks, and the M’s ship seemed righted once again after they used a nine-hit assault on Moose in the second through fourth innings to take a 5-3 lead.

But like a heavyweight fighter all punched out, Seattle seemed worn and spent. Or perhaps Mussina figured something out, because the hitting stopped there. Martinez made a bid for a leadoff single to short center in the fifth, but Williams flashed a bit of old brilliance in charging well and making a shoetop catch. Ibanez lined hard to Matsui, but that was it. Mussina coaxed four weak grounders around the four-pitch walk he issued to the start his last inning, his only free pass of the day. He retired with a lead (and a win) after six.

And free passes were the story (again), as the Yanks “rallied” to tie. Flaherty fouled off five Villone pitches before walking after Clark’s fourth-inning base knock, and the lefty dropped Jeter’s roller for an error that filled the bases. Bernie notched his first of three rbi on a five-pitch walk, and A-Rod knotted matters at five with a towering fly to deep left, the first of five Yankee runs to score on a struck ball. And when Clark delivered the go-ahead run in the fifth, it stood out that he did so by driving the run in with a base hit. It ended Villone’s day, and gave him the loss.

The rest is bookkeeping, though the Yanks’ three-run uprising in the seventh off righty Mateo (two of the runs walked!) allowed Gabe White to finish up, after Paul Quantrill had delivered the usual scoreless seventh. The big blow was a Bernie Williams double into the right-field corner, and even if Bernie appeared to have a tough night baserunning, his bat has improved dramatically in the last week, and he looked OK in center, though he did bobble one ball in haste that did not result in a baserunner advancing.

With a rare start, Tony Clark deserves kudos for two key hits, two walks, two runs and two rbi. And the verdict on Mussina is mixed, at best. Some of the base hits were ground balls, one or two were flairs, and only two reached the wall. But four were doubles, and even some of the outs were smacked. He does deserve credit for throwing strikes even though they were hit. Had he walked 10 as the M’s did — or even half that many — the game would have turned ugly(er) early. He threw but 63 pitches after the first (I arrived too late to reliably count that frame), “let ’em hit it,” and was rewarded for his strategy with a win.

It was a beautiful night in the Bronx, and the almost 50,000 fans wanted a win. They booed lustily at the Mariners hits, cheered when the Yanks scored; whether the run came via walk, error, or hit did not appear to matter. They delighted in the scores of foul balls smacked all over the park this cool evening, though sadly, not one fan succeeded in making a clean catch the whole night.

So the Yanks and their fans walked off happy, with a 9-5 win. It was not artistic; it was not well played. They prevailed for one reason: nothing they did was as bad as the 10 free passes issued by Seattle. It’s that simple. The saying goes that when a ballplayer tops a ball and beats it out for a base hit, it “looks like a line drive” in the next day’s paper. When Alex Rodriguez made a fine grab on Spiezio’s bouncer and tossed to Clark to end this fiasco, the strains of Frank Sinatra’s New York New York filled the Bronx sky, just as they had after two inspiring victories over the Angels this very week.

Mr. Sinatra passed away on May 14 six years ago. On that same day, the last episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s hit sit-com was televised. The perfect phrase for this game was coined on that show: This game’s essence?

Yada Yada Yada

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!