Cone, Yankees Sweep Mariners

Four starts after achieving perfection, David Cone finally got some relief.

Cone won for the first time since his perfect game and Scott Brosius had a career-high five RBIs Sunday as the New York Yankees completed a four-game sweep with a 9-3 win over the Seattle Mariners.

"I've got to admit, I didn't like hearing, 'He hasn't won a game since the perfect game,"' Cone said. "So it's nice to get that monkey off my back. The fact of the matter is, I hadn't won. It's good to get that out of my mind."

The sweep was New York's first against the Mariners since July 14-17, 1994, at the Kingdome.

Cone expected the Mariners to put up more of a fight.

"Nobody likes to get swept at home, especially in a four-game series," he said. "So they were not happy. I thought it was going to be a tough day."

"Any time you go on the road and you can win a series, much less sweep a series, it's a great ego booster for your ballclub," manager Joe Torre said. "To come here to Seattle, where the history of the Yankees hasn't been very good, and to do this is a big plus for us."

The Yankees lost three straight in the Kingdome in the 1995 playoffs, but have won eight of their last nine in Seattle. The Mariners beat New York six out of seven times during the regular season in '95 and five out of six here in '96.

Brosius gave Cone a 3-0 lead in the fourth with his second home run of the series. John Halama (9-3) walked Bernie Williams and gave up a single to Chili Davis to start the inning. One out later, Brosius hit Halama's first pitch over the left-field fence for his 13th homer.

Halama went 6 2-3 innings, giving up five runs on six hits and three walks. The loss broke his personal nine-game winning streak.

"It's over," Halama said. "That is a good hitting team."

Chad Curtis also homered for New York, leading off the seventh with his fifth of the season to give the Yankees a 4-0 lead. After Curtis' homer, Derek Jeter doubled with two outs and Paul Abbott relieved.

Abbott then walked Bernie Williams, Chili Davis and Tino Martinez to force in a run. Upon Martinez's walk, Seattle manager Lou Piniella promptly got into an animated argument with home plate umpire Ted Barrett and was ejected for arguing balls and strikes.

Piniella was thrown out while he was still in the dugout. Then he came onto the field to argue some more.

"I told him (Barrett) that the Yankees were intimidating him and he did not like that very much," Piniella said. "Cone was getting the pitches and our guy (Abbott) was not treated to the same luxury."

After Piniella's ejection, Brosius hit a two-run single to left.

Brosius, the 1998 World Series MVP, was 3-for-21 coming into the game and 2-for-11 in the first three games of the series. He finished with nine RBIs in the series on just four hits.

"Sometimes it's about timing," Brosius said of his big day. "Sometimes you get to come up in the right situations. That was kind of the case here."

"I came up in the six hole and it just happened I got a couple of situations today with runners on base. I think sometimes RBIs can be kind of streaky things."

Cone was chased in the bottom of the inning. Alex Rodriguez led off with a single and, after going to second on catcher's indifference, Rodriguez scored on Edgar Martinez's single. Cone was then replaced by Jason Grimsley with a 7-1 lead.

"I kind of ran out of gas," said Cone, who threw 118 pitches.

The Mariners added two more in the nning on a bases-loaded walk to Russ Davis and Brian Hunter's groundout.

Williams had an RBI single in the eighth and Martinez scored on Rodriguez's throwing error in the ninth.

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