SEATTLE — Andy Pettitte under the Florida palm trees was a lot better than the Andy Pettitte who worked the Pacific Northwest last night. Unfortunately for the Yankees and Pettitte, the games in Florida didn’t count.
Looking to build off a solid spring training in which he found his change-up and wanting to re-establish himself as one of the top pitchers, Pettitte’s first start of the year opened slowly and ended early as the Mariners hung a 7-5 defeat on Pettitte in front of a chilled Safeco Field crowd of 40,827.
Pitching in 55-degree weather, Pettitte fell behind too many hitters and paid the ultimate indignity of giving up a homer to Joe Oliver, a 34-year-old journeyman catcher who clubbed seven homers in the past two seasons and wasn’t deemed good enough for the lowly Pirates to bring him back after he hit .201 with one homer and 13 RBIs in 45 games last year.
“It felt like it was a pretty good pitch,” Pettitte said of the delivery that Oliver hit for a two-run homer in the fifth. “He guessed with me out there. I was looking at the replay, it was a sinker down and away. He took a guess and put pretty good wood on it.”
In five innings, Pettitte allowed five runs and seven hits. In addition to Oliver’s homer, Pettitte gave up a blast to Alex Rodriguez in the first inning. The strongest sign of Pettitte’s struggles was his needing 103 pitches to navigate five innings.
The Yankee lefty said he was bothered by a sore back.
“I put a lot of ice on it. It’s stiff,” Pettitte said. “We’ll see how I feel in four days.”
While the Mariners were punishing Pettitte, the Yankees roughed up lefty John Halama but couldn’t deliver a KO punch. Halama, who was born in Brooklyn and attended St. Francis College, worked six innings, gave up three runs (two earned) and seven hits. Halama’s best skill was pitching with runners in scoring position since the Yankees went 1-for-6 in those situations.
Derek Jeter, who hit a two-run homer in the third, was robbed of a solo homer to center by Mike Cameron in the eighth. Making Mariner fans forget Ken Griffey, Jr., Cameron climbed the center-field wall, caught Jeter’s drive over the wall and hauled it in for an out.
Mariner fans, disgruntled with the moody Griffey’s desire to leave their town, gave Cameron, who came to the Mariners from the Reds in the Griffey deal, a long standing ovation. They repeated it at the end of the inning and again when Cameron came to the plate in the eighth. Even when Mike Stanton fanned him, Cameron received applause. Cameron isn’t Griffey because nobody is. But for one night, he was good enough.
Shane Spencer’s two-run homer off Paul Abbott with no outs in the ninth forced Mariner manager Lou Piniella to summon Kazuhiro Sasaki after Spencer’s third homer of the year cut the Mariners’ bulge to 7-5.
Sasaki retired Tino Martinez on a weak grounder to first, induced Jorge Posada to hit a one-hop shot to Rodriguez and ended the game by getting Ricky Ledee to fan with the crowd on it’s feet.
John Olerud’s two-out single to left-center off Mike Stanton in the eighth hiked the Mariners’ lead to 7-3.
The Mariners padded their lead against Ramiro Mendoza in the sixth when they scored a run to go up, 6-3.
Mendoza walked pinch-hitter Mark McLemore to start the inning and he scooted to third on Stan Javier’s one-out single. McLemore scored on Rodriguez’ fly to left.
The well-traveled Oliver presented Halama with a 5-3 lead in the fifth when the Mariners scored three runs to wipe out a 3-2 Yankee advantage.
A leadoff walk to Rodriguez was followed by Jay Buhner’s one-out double into the left-field corner that scored Rodriguez from first to tie the score, 3-3. With Buhner on second and two outs, Oliver took the first pitch over the right-field wall for a two-run Mariner bulge.