Yankees Have Key, Ending Angel Streak : Baseball: New York gets one-hitter from former free agent in 5-0 victory.

While the Angels remain exhilarated by the early harvest of their youth movement, the New York Yankees reminded them Tuesday that the free-agent route still can have its merits.

Jimmy Key, the pitcher who couldn’t resist the Yankees’ offer as a free agent this winter, thoroughly dominated the Angels with a one-hit performance in the Yankees’ 5-0 victory.

Key, who won a World Series ring with the Toronto Blue Jays in October and signed a four-year, $17-million contract with the Yankees two months later, never gave the Angels a chance. If not for Gary DiSarcina’s leadoff single to center field in the sixth inning, the crowd of 24,261 at Anaheim Stadium would have witnessed a no-hitter.

“I didn’t think that would be the only hit against him tonight,” DiSarcina said. “I kept thinking we’d get him the next inning, the next inning, but he just shut us down.”

Said Key, who is 3-0 with an 0.93 earned-run average: “It was one of those games where everything went my way. I never think I have no-hit stuff. I was just trying to get people out.”

Angel Manager Buck Rodgers argued from the bench about home-plate umpire Joe Brinkman’s strike zone and said at times it perhaps was enlarged, but it really never mattered.

“When you’re around the plate,” Rodgers said, “you tend to get the close ones. Jimmy Key was around the plate all night. He kept us off-balance, off base and off the scoreboard.”

Key, who pitched his last one-hitter in 1986 and the first against the Angels since Kansas City Royal left-hander Dennis Rasmussen on Sept. 29, 1992, never was in trouble. Were it not for his throwing error in the fourth inning and a wild pitch in the seventh, no one would have touched second base.

Considering the way Key is pitching, the Yankees might have saved themselves $19 million. Four free-agent starting pitchers rejected their multimillion offers in the off-season, including a five-year, $36-million deal by Greg Maddux. But Key, 10-0 with a 1.34 ERA in his last 14 appearances, might be the best of the bunch.

The moment Yankee center fielder Bernie Williams led off the game with a homer against starter Chuck Finley, Key never needed any further help. He barely even needed an outfield, allowing only four fly balls the entire game.

In contrast, Finley (2-1) surrendered a career-high four homers. He yielded two home runs to Mike Gallego--who only once has hit more than three homers in an entire season--and watched in awe at Danny Tartabull’s moon shot over the left-field fence in the seventh inning that sailed 422 feet.

Tartabull and Gallego also were free agents the Yankees signed a year ago.

The Yankees’ victory not only snapped the Angels’ six-game winning streak, but it spoiled Angel rookie first baseman J.T. Snow’s debut against his former teammates.

Snow, the main attraction in the Jim Abbott trade, was incessantly teased by the Yankees during batting practice.

Come on, they asked, did he sell his soul to have a start like this? What was he trying to do, make Don Mattingly look bad?

Snow, who entered the game batting .386 with six homers and 17 RBIs, went hitless during the game. He simply laughed along with them, because he can’t explain this phenomenon any more than anyone else.

“When I saw the way he was going this spring,” Rodgers said, “I said, ‘We’re going to have to live and die with this.’ I wasn’t too impressed his spring training.

“But when the season started, and watching what he’s done, I said, ‘We’re going to have to live and die by this! Yes sir, we’re going to have to live and die by this.’ ”

Snow, who on Monday had publicity pictures taken, has difficulty believing how his life has changed since the Dec. 6 trade that outraged much of Southern California.

He was little more than another minor league prospect in the Yankee system. Sure, the Yankees believed he would be a big league player, but with Mattingly entrenched at first base, Snow would have been used only as a fifth outfielder and part-time designated hitter.

“I really didn’t fit anywhere in their plans,” Snow said. “I think that kind of showed.”

Instead of welcoming Snow with open arms when they called him up last September, the Yankees had him sharing a locker with Dave Silvestri. He got only 14 at-bats, and produced two singles, hardly persuading management that they should hang onto him.

“I’m not trying to prove they made a mistake by trading me,” Snow said, “or prove them wrong. Actually, I’ll always be grateful that they traded me. I think the trade worked out well for both teams.”