August 30, 1977 – Yankees 6, Mariners 5 (11)

NEW YORK – One of the oddest things about this championship season for the Yankees was that, for whatever reason, they really struggled against the American League’s two expansion teams, Toronto and Seattle.

There were 25 games scheduled against those two teams in 1977, and a betting man probably would have expected the Yankees would have won 20. Instead, entering a two-game set against the Mariners, New York had posted a surprisingly mediocre 8-8 combined record against the neophytes, and Sparky Lyle had an idea why that might have been. “They give us trouble because they don’t have anything to lose. They go up there to swing the bat and hit the ball. That’s what they should do.”

That’s what the Mariners did in the eighth inning against Ed Figueroa and Lyle, and it almost cost the Yankees the game. New York led 5-2 when Seattle strung together five singles and a sacrifice fly to tie the game, and it wasn’t until Mickey Rivers’ leadoff, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th that the Yankees could put this one in the ‘W’ column.

“We play just as hard against them,” Martin said of the expansion teams, both of which were made up mostly of major-league has-beens or inexperienced young players. “But they seem to get more dunkers falling in. Everything seems to go right for them. You tell yourself that’s the kind of team you should beat, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”

By season’s end, the Yankees were 9-6 against Toronto and 6-4 against Seattle, meaning those two teams played the Yankees tougher than the Indians, Angels, White Sox, Tigers, Twins, A’s and Rangers.

Graig Nettles’ three-run homer in the fifth staked Figueroa to a 4-1 lead, and Thurman Munson’s RBI infield single in the seventh made it 5-2. But in the eighth, Figueroa gave up three straight one-out singles, so Martin brought in Lyle, and the normally reliable closer stumbled. He allowed the Mariners to tie the score, but he settled down thereafter, and was rewarded with his 11th victory when Rivers won it with his 10th home run, one more than he hit in the previous two seasons combined.

“I’d rather come in and save the games,” Lyle said. “It would be a whole lot easier.”

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