Tino, Yanks Beat Orioles

The New York Yankees have spent the entire season operating in the shadow of last year's wildly successful team. In most cases, the 1999 version has paled in comparison.

Yet the current club now has this feat to brag about: For the first time in 60 years, the Yankees have four players with at least 100 RBIs.

Tino Martinez homered and drove in four runs to reach 100 RBIs for a fifth straight season, and the Yankees rallied from an early three-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 9-5 Tuesday night.

Martinez has driven in 102 runs, giving the Yankees four players with 100 RBIs for the first time since 1939. Martinez joins Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter and Paul O'Neill. This is the fifth team in Yankees history to have as many as four players with 100 RBIs.

"We can't measure up as home run hitters, but we have some productive hitters," New York manager Joe Torre said. "We're getting men on base, getting deep in the count and we know what to do with it."

Martinez came into the game batting .257, but he's been quite proficient in the batting order behind Jeter, O'Neill and Williams.

"It's nice to get 100, and obviously the win tonight was huge," Martinez said. "But to get my 100th RBI in the inconsistent, bad year that I've had is a credit to my teammates. They've been on base all year."

"If I didn't have the hitters I have around me, I wouldnt have it."

It was only the fourth loss in 20 games for the Orioles, who got a homer from Ryan Minor and two RBIs apiece from Albert Belle and Mike Bordick. But Baltimore pitchers issued 11 walks.

"That's typical New York Yankees baseball. They make you throw the ball over the plate, and we didn't do much of that," Baltimore manager Ray Miller lamented.

Martinez produced New York's first four runs with an RBI single and a three-run homer, but the Yankees trailed 5-4 before batting around in the sixth for the 41st time this season. Ricky Ledee drove in a run with an infield hit and D'Angelo Jimenez capped the uprising against Sidney Ponson (12-12) with a two-out, two-run single.

Jimenez entered the game in the third inning as a replacement for second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, who left with soreness in his left thumb. Torre said Knoblauch would probably miss at least two days.

A sacrifice fly by O'Neill and a run-scoring grounder by Williams made it 9-5 in the eighth.

Ramiro Mendoza (8-9) pitched 3 2-3 scoreless innings in relief of rookie Ed Yarnall, who gave up five runs and seven hits in 4 1-3 innings.

The Yankees got a first-inning run on a two-out single by Martinez before Belle hit a two-run double in the bottom half.

A two-run single by Bordick made it 4-1 in the second. New York tied it in the third when Martinez hit his 27th homer following a single by Jeter and a walk to Williams.

"I had a good feeling about Tino, watching him the last couple of days," Torre said. "That's all he needs to be, and then the ability takes over."

It was the 35th home run yielded by Ponson, tying the Orioles record held by Robin Roberts (1963) and Scott McGregor (1986).

"You throw the ball down the middle, that's what happens," Miller said.

Minor hit his third homer of the season leading off the fourth to put the Orioles ahead 5-4.

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