Pettitte Is a Silencer Against A's

By MIKE DiGIOVANNA

Oct. 5, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND —

Imagine if George Steinbrenner had his way in July of 1999, as he has had for nearly all of his tumultuous 28-year reign as New York Yankee owner.

Left-hander Andy Pettitte would have toiled this season for a last-place Philadelphia team that lost 97 games instead of resurrecting a terminal Yankee team with 7 2/3 shutout innings in Wednesday night’s 4-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics in Game 2 of the American League division series.

A crowd of 47,860 in Network Associates Coliseum saw Pettitte muffle an A’s team that seemed ready to steamroll the Yankees, limiting them to five hits, striking out three, walking one and inducing two double-play grounders.

The victory snapped New York’s eight-game losing streak, it evened the best-of-five series, 1-1, heading into Game 3 Friday night in Yankee Stadium, and it further cemented Pettitte’s reputation as big-game pitcher.

Pettitte threw 8 1/3 scoreless innings in a 1-0 victory over Atlanta in pivotal Game 5 of the 1996 World Series, and he threw 7 1/3 scoreless innings in Game 4 of the 1998 World Series, a 3-0, championship-clinching victory.

He also went toe-to-toe with probable Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez twice this season and won both games.

“He can pitch a big game, and I don’t think he’s pitched one bigger than tonight,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said. “He focuses and gets himself into this trance, and he does a lot of talking to himself.

“You can watch him. He has meetings with himself on the mound and talks himself into positive things. He’s completely oblivious to everything going on around him. But most of the time he’s locked in like he was tonight.”

To think, Pettitte almost became a Phillie in 1999 after his sluggish start (5-7, 5.59 earned-run average) raised questions about his sore elbow and concerns he had left his cut fastball on the cutting-room floor.

As the July 31 trade deadline approached, it seemed Pettitte’s Yankee career wouldn’t last much longer than Steinbrenner’s patience. The Boss wanted Pettitte gone, and the Yankees were deep into trade talks with the Phillies when Torre intervened on Pettitte’s behalf, urging Steinbrenner to keep him.

Nice move. Pettitte rebounded to go 7-3 in the second half of 1999 and won two postseason games. He went 19-9 with a 4.35 ERA this season, and he changed the complexion of this division series with Wednesday night’s performance.

“That Game 5 in Atlanta never left me, even when he was struggling so badly last year there was talk of him being traded,” Torre said. “He’s a tough guy.”

Pettitte’s seventh career postseason victory was not secured Wednesday until he survived a bizarre eighth inning, when Yankee second baseman Luis Sojo fell down and couldn’t get up and third baseman Scott Brosius had trouble following the bouncing ball.

Trailing, 3-0, Oakland catcher Ramon Hernandez doubled with two out, and Terrence Long hit a routine grounder to second. But Sojo’s right foot got tangled in his left shoelace as he set to throw, and he crumbled to the ground, unable to complete the play.

Torre replaced Pettitte with closer Mariano Rivera, and with runners on first and third, Randy Velarde chopped what looked like a routine grounder to third.

But the ball, as Brosius said, “took a right-hand turn” when it hit the transition between grass and dirt. Brosius had to knock it down with his bare hand, pick it up and throw Velarde out to end the inning and begin the stream of one-liners headed Sojo’s way.

“They were all saying, ‘That’s what happens when you get over 50, you fall down,’ ” Sojo said. “That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me, and it was embarrassing.”

A more satisfying moment for Sojo came in the sixth, when his two-run double broke open a 1-0 game. Oakland starter Kevin Appier had matched Pettitte zero for zero until the sixth, when a questionable move by A’s Manager Art Howe backfired and the Yankees scored three runs.

Bernie Williams doubled with one out, and Appier struck out Tino Martinez. Howe elected to intentionally walk Paul O’Neill, who hit .222 in September and had four hits in his last 41 at-bats, to face Glenallen Hill, who laced an RBI single to center for a 1-0 lead.

Sojo followed with a two-run double down the right-field line.

“We felt like our best shot was going after Glenallen,” Howe said. “Appier has that real good slider, and he had gotten him twice. And O’Neill has come up with so many big hits for them. . . . I know he’s been struggling, but we just felt we weren’t going to let him beat us.”

N.Y. YANKEES vs. OAKLAND

GAME 1

Oakland 5, New York 3

GAME 2

New York 4, Oakland 0

FRIDAY

Oakland (Hudson 20-6) at New York (Hernandez 12-13), 5 p.m., Ch. 4

SEATTLE vs.

CHICAGO

GAME 1

Seattle 7, Chicago 4

(10 innings)