Yankees’ Win Is One for Books

Alfonso Soriano got his mark, Bernie Williams just missed.

Soriano homered to become the only second baseman to post a 30-30 season and Williams’ streak ended at 11 consecutive hits--one short of the record--as the New York Yankees defeated the Seattle Mariners, 8-3, Saturday.

“I think it was a great run,” Williams said. “I had a lot of fun with it. And obviously you don’t expect those things to last. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and John Vander Wal also homered as the Yankees won their sixth in a row.

Soriano hit his 30th homer in the seventh inning off Mariner reliever James Baldwin. Soriano, in his second full season at only 24 years old, earlier stole his league-leading 34th base.

Soriano hit his 29th homer last Sunday off Oakland’s Mark Mulder.

“Now, I want to forget about 30-30,” he said. “Now, I want to keep going and play hard every day because the season’s not over yet.”

Williams singled in the first inning off Ryan Franklin (4-3), then grounded out to third baseman Jeff Cirillo in the third.

Williams was two for five and is batting .339, second in the league behind Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki.

Franklin said Williams had good karma going for him in the first.

“He didn’t hit it hard,” Franklin said. “He just rolled it between Cirillo and [shortstop Carlos] Guillen. He had a little--I don’t want to say luck because he is such a good hitter--but he had a little something working for him.”

Williams came up one hit shy of tying the major league mark of 12 consecutive hits set by Mike “Pinky” Higgins of the 1938 Boston Red Sox and tied by Walt Dropo of the 1952 Detroit Tigers.

Williams reached base safely in 13 consecutive plate appearances, three shy of the mark set by Ted Williams with the Red Sox in 1957.

After going four for four Friday night, Williams said he didn’t want to know what the record was. But he acknowledged after Saturday’s game that he found out anyway.

“I made a few calls last night and for some reason people watching the game [on TV] said, ‘Oh, my God, you know what?’ ” Williams said.