In the 4th, Bobby Jones was in control with a 1-0 lead and had retired Derek Jeter on a pop up for the first out. Paul O'Neill then hit one up the middle that Rey Ordonez snagged on the RF side of 2B, but John Olerud uncharacteristically dropped his throw to first, allowing O'Neill to reach. And in 1998, the Yankees capitalized on every mistake by the opposition. Sure enough, Darryl Strawberry hit a single next, and then Tino Martinez drilled a homer over the RF wall, making it 3-1.

Jones then retired 8 in a row before Tino led off the 7th with a double. Jorge Posada followed with a surprise bunt single, putting runners on the corners with no one out. Next was Chad Curtis, who crushed a pitch that had home run distance to LF but went foul by about 6 inches. He instead hit a sac fly to RF to score Tino, bringing up Scott Brosius in the key AB of the game. He grounded one to Ordonez at SS, and Rey decided to try to cut down Posada going to third. Instead, he threw the ball directly into Jorge's back and everyone was safe. Andy Pettitte was up next, and even though he was at 111 pitches, he stayed in and promptly struck out in a weird move by Joe Torre. Still, with this being the Yankees, bad moves never seemed to matter. Jones gave up a terrible walk to Chuck Knoblauch, loading the bases for Jeter. Naturally, Jeter dunked one into CF for a 2-run single, and at this point we all knew there was no coming back. Bill Pulsipher came in for Jones to face O'Neill but another single brought in a 4th run in the inning.

Somehow, the Yankees turned an Olerud missed catch and a poor decision by Ordonez into 7 runs. Meanwhile, Pettitte struck out a season-high 9, as Edgardo Alfonzo, Mike Piazza and Olerud combined to go 0-for-11. The Mets are choking in their biggest series at home of the decade, and leave it up to Masato Yoshii, who's 0-2 with a 7.29 ERA over his previous 5 starts, to prevent the sweep. Color me pessimistic.