Mariners, Yankees Advance to AL Championship Series With Game 5 Victories : American League: Moyer, McLemore and Martinez help Seattle save its season with a 3-1 win over the Indians.

As good as the Seattle Mariners were during their 116-win romp through the regular season, there was always this nagging question about them, one they never had a chance to answer because they were never in a position to find out: How would they react to adversity?

Two playoff elimination games in two days in cities three time zones apart provided an unprecedented challenge for the Mariners, and they not only survived, they thrived.

Behind another superb effort by left-hander Jamie Moyer and a clutch hit by the man with a thousand positions, Mark McLemore, the Mariners beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-1, in the decisive Game 5 of the American League division series Monday before a Safeco Field crowd of 47,867.

The Mariners were bludgeoned by the Indians, 17-2, on Saturday, a Game 3 loss that gave Cleveland a 2-1 edge in the best-of-five series, and the Indians held a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning of Game 4 Sunday with their best pitcher, Bartolo Colon, on the mound in Jacobs Field.

But Seattle rallied for a 6-2 victory, traveled back to the Pacific Northwest on Sunday night and thoroughly whipped the Indians on Monday afternoon to gain a berth in the AL championship series against the New York Yankees in a rematch of last year’s ALCS, which the Yankees won in six games.

“This year has gone really well, but we really hadn’t been backed into a corner,” Moyer said. “We were these last two days, and we rose to the occasion. This shows a little bit more of what we’re made of. I think it’s good that we went through something like this. That can only help us in the next round.”

When Seattle lost the first game of the series, 5-0, they were already being compared to the 1954 Indians, a team that won 111 games but was swept by the New York Giants in the World Series. Though few players would admit it, there was pressure on the Mariners to validate their regular season with a strong playoff performance, a feeling that intensified after their Game 3 loss.

That’s why there seemed to be as much relief as joy in the Mariner clubhouse after Moyer gave up one run and three hits in six innings, McLemore hit a two-run single off Indian starter Chuck Finley in the second, Edgar Martinez provided a key insurance run with a seventh-inning RBI single, leadoff batter Ichiro Suzuki had three hits to tie a division series record with 12 hits overall, and relievers Jeff Nelson, Arthur Rhodes and Kazuhiro Sasaki shut down the Indians.

“We had everything to lose, without a doubt,” Mariner outfielder Jay Buhner said. “We really got tested ... we passed the test admirably.”

They gained admirers in the opposing clubhouse, as well.

“They held their composure a lot,” Cleveland shortstop Omar Vizquel said. “They have the look of a 116-win team. They made the plays when they needed to, they got the outs when they needed them, and they got the pitching when they needed it.”

Moyer provided many of those clutch pitches. After Seattle’s Game 1 loss, Moyer baffled the Indians in Game 2, giving up one run and five hits in six innings of a 5-1 Mariner victory. He was every bit as effective Monday, caressing the outer reaches of home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck’s liberal strike zone with his off-speed pitches and refusing to give the Indians anything decent to hit.

“I don’t think we could have had a more perfect guy out there to throw Game 5,” Nelson said. “This guy, even though he might not light up the radar gun, he’s a gamer, and he doesn’t let things rattle him. He might throw 83 mph, but he’s still a bulldog out there.”

Finley is known to have similar qualities, which were on display when he nearly pitched out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the second inning by striking out Dan Wilson with a nasty forkball and David Bell with a nifty slider.

But McLemore, who was batting .071 (one for 14), lined a ball to shallow left field. Cleveland outfielder Marty Cordova raced in and attempted a diving catch, but the ball short-hopped into his glove as two runs scored.

The Indians countered in the third when Travis Fryman doubled to left-center, took third on Cordova’s long fly ball to right and, after a walk to Einar Diaz, scored on Kenny Lofton’s single to center.

Vizquel’s bunt single loaded the bases for Roberto Alomar, who did not ground into a double play in the second half of the season. But Alomar, who bounced into a 6-4-3 double play in the first inning, swung at Moyer’s first pitch and hit a one-hopper to third baseman Bell, who started an inning-ending double play.

Moyer took it from there, taking advantage of a strike zone that seemed as low as short-term interest rates and as wide as Tony Siragusa. Moyer struck out Juan Gonzalez, Ellis Burks and Jim Thome, all looking, in the fourth inning, the first time this season Moyer has struck out the side.

He struck out six from the fourth through sixth innings, while Cleveland players barked at Hirschbeck.

Nelson relieved Moyer to start the seventh and struck out four of five batters before yielding Diaz’s two-out single in the eighth, which gave Cleveland its first baserunner since the third. Rhodes came on to retire Lofton on a fly ball to the warning track in center, and Sasaki retired the side in order in the ninth.

The heart of the Cleveland order, Alomar, Gonzalez, Burks and Thome, was hitless in 14 at-bats.

“Oh yeah, this is a big relief to win this series,” Martinez said. “We had to win these last two games, and we had to beat their best pitcher, Colon, in Game 4. But coming back to Seattle and having Jamie on the mound, I felt pretty good about the situation.”

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Moyer-ing ‘Em Down

Seattle left-hander Jamie Moyer, at age 38 and in his 15th major league season, had his best year--and was particularly effective against the Cleveland Indians:

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Vs. Cleve. Vs. Cleve. Vs. Cleve. 2001 Reg. Season Div. Series Total 2001 Reg. Season G 2 2 4 33 IP 14 12 26 209 2/3 H 5 8 13 187 R 1 2 3 84 ER 1 2 3 80 HR 0 0 0 24 BB 2 2 4 44 SO 11 10 21 119 W-L 2-0 2-0 4-0 20-6 ERA 0.64 1.50 1.04 3.43

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