Result Leaves Seattle Walking the High Wire

He signed with the Minnesota Twins out of Fullerton’s Sunny Hills High School and has now spent half of his 34 years as a professional pitcher, enduring for the most part rather than achieving, during a persistent and resilient odyssey in which he has been released by five organizations, gone on the disabled list 11 times and had knee and shoulder surgeries.

This year, riding the crest of the Seattle Mariner wave and benefiting from improved run and relief support, Paul Abbott had a breakthrough season, winning 17 of 21 decisions, including 10 in a row at one point.

All of that, the high of this season, the low of so many others, should have helped prepare Abbott for his start against the New York Yankees Sunday night in Game 4 of the American League’s championship series at Yankee Stadium.

Then again, who could have been prepared for what unfolded?

Who could have been prepared for one of the strangest postseason games ever?

How do you prepare for pitching five no-hit innings amid all the tension and not getting a chance to continue?

Of course, Abbott threw 97 pitches and walked eight in those five innings, a near-ALCS record, and when he was asked if he had ever had a comparable stint said “maybe in A-ball or my senior year in high school or when I was walking a high wire in Vegas one time.”

If Abbott’s bizarre start helped establish the tenuous tone for a game in which there were 15 walks, 21 base runners and only six hits, there was a comparably bizarre (or at least unusual) finish in which the vaunted Seattle bullpen was unable to hold a lead.

The Mariners were 97-4 in games they led after seven innings during the regular season and 3-0 in the division series, but this time Arthur Rhodes gave up a tying homer to Bernie Williams in the eighth, and closer Kazuhiro Sasaki gave up a decisive homer to rookie Alfonso Soriano in the ninth.

The delirious Yankees won, 3-1, and now, Seattle Manager Lou Piniella acknowledged, his team is in “precarious position.”

The Yankees lead the four-of-seven series, 3-1, and the Mariners must win tonight if they are going to validate Piniella’s guarantee--delivered when his team was down 0-2--that they would take it back to Seattle for a Game 6.

If the Yankees are to be denied a fourth straight trip to the World Series, it can also be guaranteed that the Mariners will have to get more than the two hits they collected off Roger Clemens, Ramiro Mendoza and Mariano Rivera Sunday.

A Bret Boone homer off Mendoza in the eighth represented the second of those hits and provided the lead that Rhodes and Sasaki couldn’t maintain.

Given the success of the Mariner bullpen, catcher Tom Lampkin was asked if he considered the game over when Boone homered.

“I don’t think that way,” he said. “You play nine innings and we had six outs to go, but I’ll take our bullpen in that situation any time and any place.”

The Mariners won 116 regular-season games and rallied against Cleveland to win the division series, but the homers by Williams and Soriano--each off fastballs and each benefiting from a swirling, late inning wind blowing toward right--may have been the ultimate body blows.

There was no music, little noise in the Seattle clubhouse, but Lampkin, who is lending his name to a playoff column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said his theme for today would center on “how this has been a professional team all year and I don’t think anyone will be playing tomorrow with the thought of today in mind.”

Perhaps, but Abbott’s tenure may stay with him forever.

The veteran right-hander pitched a flawless first, then walked two batters in each of the next four innings. A calculator was needed to keep track of his and the esteemed Clemens’ pitch counts. Clemens walked four but gave up only one hit in a five-inning stint of 89 pitches. The Rocket remains hampered by a sore hamstring that doesn’t affect his velocity as much as his location. Abbott’s location was affected by the fact that he had pitched only five relief innings in the 24 days since his last start.

“It was my first start in three weeks,” he said. “I really didn’t have anything working that I could rely on. I just threw everything I had at them. I didn’t want to give in. Obviously, you saw late in the game, it looked like pop ups could get out of the park with the wind, so basically I didn’t want to throw anything down the middle. If I walked them, I walked them, but I wasn’t going to give in.”

Walk them he did, coming within one of the LCS record and leading to his own hike after the fifth.

A no-hitter isn’t the issue in October, and Abbott didn’t argue.

“I’ve probably thrown more pitches in five innings, but I expected to be limited (because of his recent inactivity),” he said. “I don’t even know how many I threw but it felt like about 140.”

Said Piniella: “Paul pitched well. He hadn’t been out there for awhile, and he generally throws a lot of pitches in his starts. We had our bullpen basically set up the way we wanted, but they couldn’t hold it this time. Give the Yankees credit. We didn’t lose it, they beat us.”

Now facing elimination, the Mariners must rely on Aaron Sele, who has allowed 12 hits and seven runs in eighth innings of two postseason starts. The October reliable Andy Pettitte, who beat Sele and the Mariners, 4-2, in Game 1 goes for the Yankees.

The Mariners are batting .199 for the series, a more dangerous high wire than Abbott has ever walked.