Yankees Go Four-Ward

So, the New York Yankees relegated those 116 Seattle Mariner wins to a mere footnote, winning their 38th American League pennant and fourth in a row Monday night, and Lou Piniella went down insisting there is no such thing as pinstripe mystique or invincibility.

Now it will be up to the Arizona Diamondbacks to prove it.

Piniella and his Mariners will be returning to the Emerald City today, but without Toto or the Yankees.

There will be no Game 6 Wednesday night at Safeco Field, as the Mariner manager had guaranteed there would be after his team lost the first two games of the best-of-seven series for the AL title.

It was Piniella’s attempt to reaffirm his confidence in the Mariners and convince them the Yankees can be beaten, but the Mariners reached a point in Game 5 on Monday night in which they appeared not to believe any of it.

Maybe the 3-1 loss Sunday after Bret Boone homered to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead in the eighth inning was too much of a body blow.

Maybe Aaron Sele is incapable of winning a postseason game.

He gave up four quick runs to the Yankees in the third inning of Monday night’s game and the Mariners never recovered, losing in embarrassing fashion, 12-3.

Sele, who leads the AL in wins since 1998, has an 0-6 record in the postseason and is unlikely to be re-signed, one of several players who might not be with the team that stampeded through the 2001 season when it returns to the field in spring training.

The Mariners tied a 95-year-old record for wins, but when it comes to history ... well, the Yankees wrote the book--and continue to edit it.

In advancing to Saturday’s World Series opener against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix, the Yankees eliminated two teams, the Mariners and Oakland Athletics, who had registered 218 regular-season victories. They have won 40 of their last 51 postseason games.

Piniella, perhaps, is right.

Maybe it’s not mystique, but 40 of 51 is a .784 percentage amid the most intense pressure, and that’s a lot of October invincibility.

“Look,” said Piniella, a former Yankee player and manager, “they have a special bunch over there. They have the ability to turn it up a notch in the postseason and deserve all the credit in the world. What they have done is unparalleled, but I don’t see any mystique.

“The media creates mystique because they talk and write about it all the time, and it can get in your head if you let it, but if you hit well and pitch well and defend well, the Yankees can be beaten. I mean it. We just didn’t do enough of any of those things. We especially didn’t hit well.”

The Mariners led the majors in runs and led their league in batting, but they hit only .211 against the playoff-tested Yankee pitchers and, aside from their 14-3 romp in Game 3, scored only eight runs in the other four games. The Yankees throttled the catalytic Ichiro Suzuki, who had only four hits in 18 at bats, held Edgar Martinez to three hits and John Olerud to four.

The non-competitive effort in Game 5 provided a painful conclusion to an otherwise magical season for the Mariners, but has it been diminished?

Did they have to get to the World Series to receive the respect that several Mariners believe has been lacking despite those 116 wins?

“I don’t think this lessens what we did at all,” veteran pitcher Norm Charlton said. “The Yankees were better than us in a seven-game series but they weren’t better than us during the season, nobody was better than us. We can take pride in doing something nobody in the American League had ever done [winning those 116 games]. We can take pride in our road record, take pride in losing only three in a row once.

“We just got outplayed in this series and you have to tip your cap. They pitched great. I mean, we didn’t fall apart against them like Oakland did. We didn’t kick the ball around. We just got beat.”

Said Mark McLemore: “We did something this year that can never be taken away, but whether you win 80 games or 150, the bottom line is winning the World Series, and if you don’t it’s a disappointment.

“How long will it take to separate that disappointment from the satisfaction of the season? I don’t know.”

The Mariners had won five of six from the Yankees during their memorable season, but McLemore said New York’s pitchers did a much better job of hitting their spots in this series.

And did they do something different against Suzuki?

“For sure,” McLemore said. “They got him out. A lot of teams tried and failed.”

Despite the 116 wins, General Manager Pat Gillick talked frequently during the season about his desire to add one more hitter for the postseason. Gillick rebuilt the Mariners after the losses of Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, but he was never able to make that deal for another hitter, which might have proved costly in October.

Now, the Mariners could lose several key players to free agency, including Boone, who led the AL in runs batted in, the versatile McLemore, and third baseman David Bell. The valuable and versatile Stan Javier is retiring, and there is speculation that Gillick himself could be leaving to try and rebuild the Toronto Blue Jays again.

How all of that plays out is uncertain. The immediate emotion Monday night was disappointment, but Piniella said he told his players that they had a fantastic season and he was proud of them. A rocking Yankee Stadium crowd of 56,370 had taunted Piniella during the late innings with chants of “No Game Six” and “Season Over,” but Piniella said he heard something different in all of that.

“The one thought that strangely came to mind,” Piniella said, “was, ‘Boy, this city has suffered a lot and tonight they let out a lot of emotion.’

“And I felt good for them in that way, I really did, and I know that’s a strange thought from a manager who is getting his ... kicked, but I certainly think the Yankees have been inspired and motivated by the way the city has responded to the [Sept. 11] tragedy, and I respect that.”

That resiliency and resolve of the team and city is real. Piniella just doesn’t buy the mystique.