A real showstopper: Meche hands Yankees shutout

NEW YORK — It took 17 years, but April 29 now can be remembered by the Mariners for more than the date Roger Clemens struck out 20 Seattle hitters.

Last night, in what may be regarded a true coming-of-age performance, Gil Meche blanked the mighty Yankees 6-0 with late help from Arthur Rhodes and Shigetoshi Hasegawa.

Meche, 24, allowed only six hits in 7-2/3 innings, and only three scratch hits until the final frame, to lead the Mariners' first shutout at Yankee Stadium since Randy Johnson beat New York 1-0 on May 17, 1991, and the Yankees' first shutout of 2003.

Yet what the Mariners are seeing goes beyond numbers. Not only has Meche not allowed an earned run in 22 consecutive innings, but unsullied, untroubled, virtually untouched in that time.

Just ask Edgar Martinez, who along with Bret Boone and Ben Davis, hit home runs to back Meche's work on the mound.

"By far, Gil is the best young pitcher I have seen come out of our organization in my whole career," Martinez said.

Martinez's career spans 20 of the organization's 26 years. He has seen all the talents hyped about and hoped for, and Meche stands out.

"His poise is great, also his stuff," said Martinez, whose two hits put him at 1,997 for his career. "He has great mound presence, no matter what's going on around him. He's very aggressive and he works quick."

Meche is so quick that Clemens — oh, did we mention he out-Clemensed the master himself? — was caught changing in the clubhouse.

"He short-shirted me twice," said the right-hander, whose first loss in six 2003 starts left him three shy of 300 wins. "Twice, I was in the clubhouse changing my shirt when Meche got through an inning so fast I had to hurry back out there."

On a night when the focus was on Ichiro and Hideki Matsui, Meche stole the show.

"Shoot, yeah, it helped," Meche said of the Ichiro-Matsui sideshow being covered by hundreds of Japanese media. "While they all watched them, I'm just out there doing my job."

In his mind, Meche was not as sharp as last time when he shut down Cleveland on five hits over 7-2/3 innings.

"I thought I would be better at first, because I never had a better bullpen," he said of his pregame tosses. "I thought I'd come out and just dominate with my fastball. But I couldn't quite dot it like last game. Maybe I was pulling off it."

Meche, who raised his record to 3-1 and lowered his earned-run average to 2.53, was decidedly alone in any negativity about his outing.

"To have Gil do that well in this park against that lineup," Mariners manager Bob Melvin said, "well, let's just say that was his best of the year."

Davis agreed with the manager.

"No way Gil was sharper last time," said the catcher, who has caught Meche's last two starts. "This was better because that's an all-star lineup 1 through 9."

No matter that Meche ran a handful of long counts, walked two and had only four strikeouts, compared to two walks and eight strikeouts in his previous start.

"While some of his pitches ran out of (the) zone," Davis said, "every pitch was a strike when it left his hand and that's very tough for a hitter. And when he was in the zone, he was explosive."

Meche had a little room to work after Boone blasted a first-pitch fastball from Clemens for a 1-0 lead in the first inning, this after The Rocketman had fanned Ichiro and Randy Winn to open the game.

Davis' two-run line drive made it 3-0 an inning later.

But after Alfonso Soriano popped out on Meche's first pitch, the right-hander fanned Nick Johnson and Jason Giambi, the former on a fastball and the latter on a classic over-the-top curveball.

The Yankees, who entered a major-league-best 20-5, had to know they were in for a ballgame.

New York had a shot in the third, when Boone forgot how many outs there were and turned a possible inning-ending double play into a mere force at second.

"Bonehead, just plain stupid," the second baseman said. "You know I was pulling for Gil to get me out of that jam then."

Meche walked Johnson to put two on with two away, and Giambi stepped up. Meche missed with a curve, then fired a 94 mph fastball that Giambi bounced meekly to the mound, and the threat was over.

It was still 3-0 in the fifth when Raul Mondesi reached third with two outs. Meche set up Soriano, who was hitting .380, with a curveball, then fed him a slider for a harmless pop-up.

Meche threw only one changeup to a right-handed hitter, to Soriano after Mondesi and Erick Almonte had opened the eighth with hits. The change came on the 12th pitch of an at-bat that cost Meche a complete game, and Soriano lined it into a double play.

While Meche was cognizant of pitching at Yankee Stadium, and matching up against Roger Clemens, it was not the first time he did either. On Aug. 27, 1999, he lost to Clemens 8-0 and lasted only 3-1/3 innings.

"I'm a different, more confident pitcher now than I was then," Meche said. "I guess I've learned a few things, and how to deal with some things, since then."

Bob Finnigan: 206-464-8276 or bfinnigan@seattletimes.com