Orioles rout Mussina, shred Yankees' pitching
BALTIMORE -- The enduring image of the evening was pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre with the phone to his ear, dialing desperately for relievers, while manager Joe Torre stared glumly into space. On a night when nine runs was an inadequate down payment, the Yankees watched a parade of horribles emerge from their bullpen and took a nasty 17-9 pounding at Camden Yards from an Orioles team that had lost nine in a row.
''Sometimes things get away from you and you can't do a lot about it," Torre conceded, after his club gave up eight straight runs after Gary Sheffield had turned a 5-1 deficit into a 7-5 lead with consecutive swings of the bat.
As soon as starter Mike Mussina left the mound after his shortest outing in 10 years (1 2/3 innings, 50 pitches, 7 hits, 5 earned runs), things got progressively uglier. Al Leiter gave up a two-out, full-count, two-run homer to Jay Gibbons in the fourth. Scott Proctor began the fifth by giving up a full-count homer to Javy Lopez. Felix Rodriguez walked in a run after Jorge Posada let one in on a passed ball. Wayne Franklin replaced him and promptly walked in another run as the Orioles went on to bat around.
So it went . . . and went . . . and went, for an excruciating 4 hours 16 minutes (six minutes short of the league record for nine innings), with Tanyon Sturtze giving up three more runs on a homer by Melvin Mora in the eighth.
''You'd like to think you can stop the bleeding somewhere along the line," said Torre, who sent eight men to the mound, including old friend Alan Embree for the second straight night. ''We never picked the right guy coming out of the bullpen."
After Monday's 11-3 giggler, when Torre had half of his starters in the showers by the seventh inning, this was a particularly revolting development. For a few giddy moments, after Sheffield cracked a two-run homer off Bruce Chen in the third and a grand slam off him in the fourth, the Yankees thought they could bash their way back into first place in the AL East. Now, with five games to play, they're wondering whom they can give the ball to if their starter falters. Sound familiar?
The more troubling issue, though, is what went wrong with Mussina, who's scheduled to start Sunday's regular-season finale against the Red Sox at Fenway. He was coming off a strong outing (6 innings, 1 run, 4 hits) against Baltimore in the Bronx last week. He seemed to be back to the way he was before an inflamed right elbow put a hole in his season.
But from the first batter, when Bernie Castro ripped a double to left above a leaping Derek Jeter, this wasn't Mussina's night.
''I just didn't have any place to throw the ball I could feel comfortable in," said the righty, who lost batter after batter after getting two strikes. ''The ball was in the middle of the plate with everything I threw."
And the Orioles, who hadn't scored this many runs in five years, teed off, belting three doubles off Mussina before he left. By the time the night was done, Baltimore had 14 hits, seven of them for extra bases, including three homers. Not bad for a flock of birds that had been deemed extinct weeks ago.
As for the Yankees, who'd won 13 of 15, they're no worse off than when they arrived here, since Boston dropped yesterday's nightcap to Toronto. Cleveland and Chicago both lost, too. Last night, misery had plenty of company.
''Last week of the season, you have to understand everyone's in the same boat you're in," says Torre, who'll send Shawn Chacon (6-3) to the hill against Daniel Cabrera (10-12) tonight and Aaron Small (9-0) against Erik Bedard (6-7) tomorrow before packing for the Hub. ''Everyone has to win.
''[The Red Sox] feel the same way we did. They lose and they look up and see we lost and vice versa. We come back tomorrow, same situation. Just one less game."
