Crunch Time

Jamie Moyer was a soft-tossing, 29-year-old journeyman lefthander in 1992 when the Chicago Cubs suggested he give up baseball. In the final days of spring training, a Cubs minor league executive called Moyer into his office to tell him that he was being released because he wasn't good enough to make the team, not with hot prospects like Lance Dickson ready for the rotation. The official offered Moyer a chance to start another career: as interim assistant pitching coach for the Triple A Iowa Cubs in Des Moines. Apparently all grounds crew positions were full.

The message was about as subtle as your father-in-law's telling you it's time to put down the remote, wipe the Chee-tos from your mouth and get a real job, which is almost exactly what happened next. Moyer's father-in-law is former Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps. "He told me, 'You should go back to school and get your degree. Maybe it's time you get a job,' " says Moyer, a Souderton, Pa., native who had attended St. Joseph's for three years. "I thought, You know, this isn't basketball. I feel I can still pitch. I still had that burning desire. So as bad as the situation seemed, I wasn't about to give up."

Moyer and his 34-54 lifetime record sat unwanted for two months until the Detroit Tigers signed him to fill out the roster of the Triple A Toledo Mud Hens. Even though the Tigers were on their way to 87 defeats, they left him in the minors all season. Nine years, three more teams and, yes, one college degree (Indiana-South Bend '96, general studies) later, Moyer is still in the same line of work, though given his 111-62 record since his near-baseball-death experience, that's like saying a house painter and Vermeer are fellow tradesmen.

Moyer, 38, isn't just another pitcher anymore. After shackling the New York Yankees for seven innings on Sunday, bringing a quiet end to a contentious series in which the Seattle Mariners took two of three games in Yankee Stadium, Moyer (14-5) was tied with Freddy Garcia as the winningest pitchers on what has a chance to be the winningest team in major league history. He also might well be the most important player in Seattle's quest to end New York's run of three world championships.

While the Mariners (89-35 through Sunday) chase records that have stood for almost 100 years, the Yankees of recent vintage remain Seattle's most meaningful measuring stick. The Mariners took the season series from New York, 6-3, thanks in part to wins in two of the three games started by Moyer, in which he was 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA. If the standings hold, the two teams would meet in October only if they advance to the American League Championship Series, as they did last year, when the Yankees won in six games.

"I believe if we'd had a healthy Jamie Moyer last year we would have beaten them," Mariners manager Lou Piniella says. Three days before the opener of last fall's championship series, Moyer threw a simulated game against teammates as a tune-up. He had just made his last scheduled delivery when he and pitching coach Bryan Price agreed Moyer should try one final slider to a lefty. Catcher Chris Widger, a righthanded batter, stepped in lefthanded and connected solidly on Moyer's pitch. The ball bounced once before hitting Moyer on the left kneecap, causing a hairline fracture. The Yankees battered Paul Abbott, Moyer's Game 4 replacement, for three runs in five innings to go up three games to one in the series. "Would I have made a difference? That's hard to say," Moyer said after his win on Sunday, "but not to be able to perform in the playoffs was very difficult to accept." Said Piniella, "He's a very, very good fit for us against the Yankees."

Coming into Sunday's game, the Yankees had been on a home run binge (having out-bombed opponents 11-0 over their previous five games), but Moyer grounded them with his usual assortment of leisurely fastballs and fiendish changeups. New York eked out one run on five hits against Moyer, who typically throws his fastball around 84 mph. "Slow, slower, slowest," said New York shortstop Derek Jeter, who popped up three times against Moyer. "That's what he's got. You don't see that kind of stuff that often, so it kind of messes you up. He's not going to challenge you with fastballs inside. You just have to deal with all that slow stuff."

It was difficult to accept the weekend as a dress rehearsal for October, especially when rookie pitchers Ted Lilly of the Yankees and Joel Pineiro of the Mariners started (neither made it through five innings on Saturday) and aces Garcia and Roger Clemens didn't. Clemens, only the sixth pitcher ever to win 16 of his first 17 decisions in a season, has been so remarkable that he even has teammate Mike Mussina gushing. "Imagine what it's like going out there every time all year knowing the other team's only going to get one or two runs and you're going to win the game," says Mussina. "I've never had that feeling—well, in high school maybe."

Here's something else to clip and save for October: This season New York is 0-2 against Seattle and 22-1 against everyone else when Clemens starts. (His only loss, a 6-2 defeat, came against the Mariners on May 20.) Seattle has scored 11 runs in 14 innings off Clemens. The Mariners have confounded even their own general manager, Pat Gillick, by scoring more runs this season than any other team in baseball, this after Gillick tried to make deals for San Diego Padres third baseman Phil Nevin, Yankees leftfielder Chuck Knoblauch, Toronto Blue Jays leftfielder Shannon Stewart and Detroit outfielder Juan Encarnacion to upgrade his offense.

Seattle's active roster includes only one player who has hit 30 or more home runs in a season, and that player, designated hitter Edgar Martinez, did so once. The Mariners do, however, have plenty of opportunistic hitters. Through Sunday they had put more runners on base than any other team in baseball and had a major-league-best .303 batting average with runners in scoring position.