By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE — One big swing got the Seattle Mariners into contention. A half-dozen missed opportunities got them beat.
The Mariners, playing flawless defense behind a gritty pitching performance from Freddy Garcia, again struggled with their bats and the result was their toughest defeat of the year.
The New York Yankees beat the Mariners 3-2 Thursday in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series at Safeco Field. The loss jammed the Mariners into an 0-2 corner in the best-of-seven series, which moves to Yankee Stadium for three games beginning Saturday.
"It’s not going to get any easier for us," said Mariners left fielder Stan Javier, whose two-run homer in the fourth inning accounted for all of the Mariners’ scoring.
The Mariners also aren’t so shallow as to rely on their regular-season record at Yankee Stadium, where they won five of six games, for a much-needed dose of confidence.
"The playoffs are different," Javier said. "You don’t think about numbers. You take one inning at a time and see what happens."
On Thursday, not much happened offensively for the Mariners, a pattern that has plagued them in the postseason.
They got six hits off Mike Mussina and reliever Ramiro Mendoza but, other than Javier’s home run, failed numerous times with runners in scoring position.
No lost opportunity was greater than in the third inning after center fielder Bernie Williams dropped a fly by Ichiro Suzuki, allowing Suzuki to reach second base with nobody out.
In the Mariners’ small-ball attack that has worked so well all season, the situation called for the next batter, Mark McLemore, to hit the ball to the right side and move Suzuki to third with less than two outs.
Instead, McLemore pushed a popup down the left field line that Chuck Knoblauch easily caught, leaving Suzuki standing at second. Bret Boone followed with a fly to center that would have scored Suzuki had McLemore been able to move him over.
"It was a pitch I shouldn’t have swung at," McLemore said. "I didn’t get it done. My job was to get him to third base, and I didn’t execute."
The Yankees led 3-0 at the time after scoring all their runs off Garcia in the top of the second inning, but McLemore’s failure was the start of a frustrating pattern by Mariners hitters.
Javier connected with a changeup from Mussina and drove his first career postseason home run over the center-field fence, making it a 3-2 game.
The Mariners had one more quality opportunity, in the seventh inning after Dan Wilson singled and moved to second with two outs. The Yankees intentionally walked Suzuki in order to pitch to McLemore, a switch-hitter who batted .311 left-handed in the regular season.
McLemore worked the count to 3-2, then grounded softly to first base to end the inning.
Edgar Martinez singled with one out in the eighth, but the Yankees brought in star closer Mariano Rivera to face John Olerud. He got two quick strikes before Olerud hit a grounder that forced out pinch runner Charles Gipson at second. Mike Cameron struck out to end the inning, and Rivera fanned two of the three hitters he faced in the ninth inning.
"Basically, it comes down to scoring runs," Cameron said. "How to do it, I don’t know. You don’t have any margin for error when you don’t score runs."
"They’re doing the job offensively and we aren’t," Mariners second baseman Bret Boone said. "We need to set the tone and get something going and give our pitchers a break. They’ve been pitching out of a hole."
Garcia, pitching on three days rest instead of the usual four, allowed seven hits in 7 1/3 innings and faltered only in the second inning, when the Yankees scored all their runs.
Tino Martinez led off with a single, Garcia walked Jorge Posada and, after Paul O’Neill hit a fly ball for the first out, Scott Brosius lined a double into the left-field corner that drove home two runs.
Garcia got Alfonso Soriano on a fly to center for the second out, and Chuck Knoblauch connected with a soft fly to shallow center that appeared to be the third out.
At least Cameron thought so.
He charged the ball and, in his words, got his glove under it just before it hit the ground. Umpire Ed Montague, working the right-field line, ruled differently and Brosius scored what became the winning run.
"You can’t say that one play totally decided the whole game," Cameron said. "We’ve got to do something offensively."
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