This Is the Yankee Way to Play Baseball

Ball. Ball. Strike swinging. Foul ball. Strike looking. Ball. Foul ball. Foul ball.

Please, somebody make them stop.

I mean, somebody make them swing.

I mean, somebody make them do something other than watch pitches that are no good, foul off ones that are, and only hit ones that are perfect.

Please, somebody stop this New York Yankee bat torture before I go out of my mind, start cutting my hair and dressing like Jim Leyritz.

Strike looking. Foul ball dropped by the catcher. Ball. Foul ball. Ball. Foul ball. Ball. Ball.

The above paragraph was based on real-life events in the first inning of the Yankees’ 9-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 2 of the World Series on Sunday.

Chuck Knoblauch was the smart hitter. Andy Ashby was the soon-to-be crazed pitcher.

In an at-bat that took longer than it takes the average New Yorker to figure the correct spelling of his name--about five painfully embarrassing minutes--Knoblauch walked.

And Ashby shrunk.

Five batters later, Tino Martinez knocked in a run by hitting a double on his sixth pitch.

One inning later, Bernie Williams hit a two-run homer on his eighth pitch.

Strike looking. Strike looking. Ball. Ball. Foul ball. Ball. Foul ball. See ya.

Please, somebody stop this New York Yankee bat torture before I go out of my mind and have laser surgery so my eyes will look like Dave Stewart’s.

“The last two days have been tough to watch,” acknowledged Stewart, the Padre pitching coach.

It only seems like the Yankees are bombing the Padres.

In reality, they are boring them to death.

The Yankees have not taken a two-games-to-none lead with a highlight video.

They have done it with an instructional video.

With a script taken directly from the mouth of every coach in every youth league ever.

“Good eye now, good eye now. Make it a good one. Make him come to you. Your pitch. Nothing bad. Make him throw strikes.” It was as if Knoblauch was hearing those words when he calmly took a ball high, and a ball low, before hitting his three-run homer in Game 1.

The same for Martinez, in the same game, when he hit his grand slam on the sixth pitch.

The Yankee hitters are baseball’s version of my medical insurance company. They work you, squeeze you, avoid you, battle you, until you finally give in and just pay the darn bill.

For all their money and glory, they have moved within 18 innings of a world championship because their hitters play the game the way it should be played.

“They are a very, very disciplined club with very good at-bats,” said Stewart. “Normally, you get a guy 0-and-2, and you can get him to swing at something that’s not a strike. But not them.”

What happens next is where the torture comes in.

“You throw a pitch that is not quite a strike but good enough to swing at . . . and they don’t swing at it,” Stewart said. “Suddenly the count is 2-and-2, then 3-and-2, then you are in trouble.”

The answer?

“We just have to figure out what the heck to do when we get somebody 0-and-2,” Stewart said.

The answer is . . . when a lineup like the Yankees is seeing the ball well, there is no answer.

Seven of the nine hitters in the Yankee lineup are what baseball people respectfully call, “Professional hitters.”

“George [Steinbrenner] don’t sign anybody who’s not a professional hitter,” said Chili Davis with a smile.

Professional hitters are not necessarily home run hitters, or all-star hitters. They are patient hitters. They know their best pitch. They wait for that pitch.

They drive opponents crazy with runs, and fans crazy by stretching games toward midnight.

“This is something we’ve done all year,” said Knoblauch.

“We like to make the pitcher work.”

Do they ever. After Game 1, the Padres’ Kevin Brown was suffering from sinus problems. After Sunday night, Ashby had lost his voice.

And yes, they have been doing it all year.

Perhaps the Yankees’ most important statistic that did not show up in the standings is that they had a better on-base percentage (.364) than anyone in the game while having the fifth-best slugging percentage (.460.).

Those two things are supposed to be mutually exclusive. Big swingers are not supposed to get on base a lot. Most power-hitters strike out, they don’t walk.

“The thing is, while they’re very, very patient . . . when they find their pitch, they’re hacking it,” said Greg Booker, Padre bullpen coach. “We have to get ahead in the count. We’ve been doing that all year, and we have time to do it now.”

Barring a sudden appearance by Steve Garvey, or Hideki Irabu, or both, this is the Padres’ only hope.

In the Yankees first loss in this postseason--when they scored just one run in 12 innings in Game 2 of the American League championship series against the Cleveland Indians--Charles Nagy set the tone by throwing first-pitch strikes to six of the first eight batters.

On Tuesday night, amid the thunder of fans who have been waiting for this game for 14 years--well, sort of waiting, some of them--Sterling Hitchcock will take the mound with that mission.

Throw strikes through the shadows.

And when you think you’ve thrown enough, throw some more.

And, of course, in the beginning, sometime after somebody locally famous has thrown out the ceremonial first pitch, all will seem possible.

The air will smell better. The grass will feel thicker. The Padres will be renewed.

Then Knoblauch will step to the plate for the real first pitch.

Strike looking. Strike looking. Ball. Ball. Foul ball. Ball. Foul ball. Foul ball. . . .