Yankees Own Martinez Mariners Veteran Again Fails To Solve The Yankee Stadium Riddle In 3-2 Defeat

There were questions and answers about the weather, about fielding mistakes, about impatience at the plate and dominance of a roly-poly left-hander over one of baseball’s most powerful lineups.

Bottom line?

Dennis Martinez pitched his best game with the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday and lost anyway, outpitched by David Wells and beaten 3-2 by the New York Yankees.

Seattle made a pair of costly errors, failed in the clutch the few times it had point-blank scoring opportunities and watched Tino Martinez finish his record-breaking month with an eighth-inning home run.

It was a tough loss to hang on the 41-year-old veteran Martinez, who is 1-10 in Yankee Stadium and 2-18 lifetime against the Yankees. But walking through the clubhouse afterward, Norm Charlton put it in perspective.

“That right there was the way baseball games are supposed to be played,” he said.

“We just played three great games against the world champions and all of them were close,” Martinez said. “Sometimes in close games, the team that plays the best does win. This series, they played just a little better than we did.

“In this game, you live with the good and the bad. If I pitch like this, we will win games.”

Five starts into his Seattle career, Martinez pitched his third solid game, getting deeper into this one and showing the wily ability to get out of trouble with double-play ground balls - three times in the first four innings.

“He’s been getting sharper, showing more command of all his pitches and tonight he was very, very good,” manager Lou Piniella said. “When you’re a team built on hitting and you don’t hit, you can look lethargic. You can look bad, and a few times tonight we did.

“When the team gets hot, those same bad-looking swings are suddenly producing runs. Give a little credit for our not hitting to Wells and his bullpen.”

Left-hander Wells, like Martinez, showed the knack of getting into, and then out of, tough situations - like when he retired Jay Buhner, then Mike Blowers, with runners at first and second base in the fourth inning.

Still, when Alvaro Espinoza doubled Dan Wilson to third base in the fifth inning, and Rich Amaral scored Wilson with a fly ball, the M’s and Yankees were tied at 1.

Wells dug in, and until he departed with two outs in the eighth inning, the Mariners got only one runner as far as third base again.

Martinez? He countered with four consecutive shutout innings after allowing Tim Raines a solo home run to open the game, and nearly escaped trouble again in the sixth. Bernie Williams singled to open that inning, and Martinez threw away a pickoff attempt that got Williams to second base.

“Late in a game, you try anything you can to stop them,” Martinez said.

A fly ball moved Williams to third with one out, and Piniella had Paul O’Neill intentionally walked to set up another inning-ending double play from Cecil Fielder. Martinez got a fastball down and Fielder hit a ground ball.

A nuclear ground ball - a line shot that reached third baseman Russ Davis at shoe level, hit him on the glove and caromed into left field. Williams scored from third on what was ruled an error.

“It was hit hard, it had some hook to it, but I should have caught it,” Davis said.

There it stayed, 2-1, into the eighth inning. Martinez left after seven, having thrown a season-high 113 pitches. Against left-hander Greg McCarthy, The Tino lined his ninth home run of the year into the right field stands - finishing April with a major-league record 34 RBIs and a .327 batting average.

The Yankees, up 3-1, went to closer Mariano Rivera.

How important was The Tino’s home run? Buhner led off the ninth with his fourth home run of the season. Rivera then retired pinch hitters Joey Cora and Paul Sorrento, then struck out Davis to earn his eighth save.

It brought a close to the six-game road trip on which Seattle went 3-3, and ended the month of April for the Mariners (16-11).

Yankees 3, Mariners 2

Seattle AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Amaral lf 3 0 0 1 0 1 .371 ARodriguez ss 4 0 0 0 0 2 .333 Griffey Jr cf 4 0 1 0 0 2 .340 EMartinez dh 4 0 1 0 0 1 .300 Buhner rf 4 1 3 1 0 0 .245 Blowers 1b 3 0 0 0 0 2 .120 a-Cora ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .247 DaWilson c 3 1 2 0 0 0 .349 b-Sorrento ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 .284 RDavis 3b 4 0 0 0 0 3 .337 Espinoza 2b 3 0 1 0 0 0 .278 Totals 34 2 8 2 0 11 New York AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Raines lf 4 1 1 1 0 0 .245 Boggs 3b 3 0 1 0 1 0 .311 BeWilliams cf 4 1 1 0 0 1 .345 TMartinez 1b 4 1 2 1 0 0 .327 O’Neill rf 3 0 0 0 1 1 .352 Fielder dh 3 0 1 0 0 0 .252 Jeter ss 2 0 1 0 1 1 .309 Duncan 2b 3 0 0 0 0 0 .333 Sojo 2b 0 0 0 0 1 0 .059 Girardi c 4 0 1 0 0 0 .250 Totals 30 3 8 2 4 3

Seattle 000 010 001 - 2

New York 100 001 01x - 3

a-grounded out for Blowers in the 9th. b-grounded out for Wilson in the 9th.

E-RDavis (9), DeMartinez (2). LOBSeattle 6, New York 9. 2B-DaWilson (8), Espinoza (1). HR-Buhner (4) off MRivera; TMartinez (9) off McCarthy; Raines (1) off DeMartinez. RBIsAmaral (7), Buhner (14), Raines (6), TMartinez (34). SB-Jeter (5). SF-Amaral. GIDPBeWilliams, O’Neill, Duncan.

Runners left in scoring position-Seattle 3 (Amaral, ARodriguez, Blowers); New York 5 (BeWilliams, Duncan 3, Girardi).

Runners moved up-RDavis, Raines, TMartinez.

DP-Seattle 3 (ARodriguez and Blowers), (ARodriguez and Blowers), (ARodriguez, Espinoza and Blowers).

Seattle IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA DeMartinez L,1-2 7 7 2 1 2 3 110 5.46 McCarthy 1/3 1 1 1 0 0 9 3.97 SSanders 2/3 0 0 0 2 0 21 8.88 New York IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA DWells W,2-1 7-2/3 7 1 1 0 9 123 3.66 Nelson 1/3 0 0 0 0 1 5 3.52 MRivera S,8 1 1 1 1 0 1 12 2.93 IBBoff DeMartinez (O’Neill) 1. HBPby DeMartinez (Fielder), by DeMartinez (Jeter).

T-3:09. A-25,708 (57,545).