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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1999)
Yankees begin title defense in impressive form By Ronald Blum The Associated Press NEW YORK— Sure, they’re not the 1998 Yankees. In their postseason opener, they looked even stronger. Picking up right where they left off last October, New York blanked Texas yet again, with Orlando Hernandez allowing two hits in eight innings and Bernie Williams driving in six runs as the World Series cham pions beat the Rangers 8-0 Tues day night. “I always pitch well with pres sure,” Hernandez said. “I like to have pressure when I pitch.” Williams, showing why the Yankees paid $87.5 million to keep him, had a two-run double off loser Aaron Sele in the fifth, a three-run homer off Mike Ve nafro in the sixth and an RBI sin gle off Jeff Fassero in the eighth. So much for the talk earlier this year that he doesn’t hit un der pressure. “I thought I was going to have a terrible night,” Williams said. “I was sleepy and dragging a lit tle bit and it was cold. Something happened when they said the lineups. Something inside of me just woke up, said it’s time to play.” He started slowly, with a groundout in the first. He wasn’t happy. “I said you just got to go out and play hard, you got to wake up. This is the postseason. This is not the regular season any more.” He also made a sliding catch of Juan Gonzalez’s liner to center field with two on in the third in ning. “I didn’t think I had a shot at it,” Williams said. ‘‘At the last minute, the ball stayed up longer than I had anticipated.” Williams, seeming distracted by his impending free agency, was O-for-11 against Texas in last year’s series and 9-for-48 (.188) in the postseason. He nearly signed with Boston be fore the Yankees upped their of fer at the last moment in Decem ber. ‘‘He’s a special person, a spe cial talent,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “For him to have not only the night he had tonight but the year he had this year, it’s very impressive. The night he had tonight was unbelievable.” Texas has just one run in its last 42 innings in the playoffs, all against New York, and has lost seven straight postseason games since beating the Yankees in the Rangers’ first one, in 1996. “I don’t care — Yankee Stadi um, Yellowstone Park, it doesn’t matter. We can score more runs than this by accident,” Rangers manager Johnny Oates said. After a day off, the series re sumes at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, with Andy Pettitte (14-11) pitching for New York against Rick Helling (13-11). Got news? 1-800-COLLECT Save a Buck or Two. WWW.1800collect,COm Savings vs. dialing “O' with AT&T.
