| | The at-bat: Paul O'Neill in the first inning.
The situation: Atlanta's Kevin Millwood pitching; New York's Chuck Knoblauch on second, Derek Jeter on first with no outs in a scoreless game.
The sequence: Strike 1 (called). Strike 2 (foul). Foul ball. Ball 1. Foul ball. Foul ball. RBI single to center.
How it played out: Batters hit .156 this season when Millwood started the at-bat with a strike. They hit .176 against the Atlanta right-hander in the first inning. On Sunday night, none of that made any difference to the Yankees, who played pepper with Millwood's two-strike offerings in the top of the first.
Knoblauch started the game with a two-strike single to left-center field on a high fastball. Jeter hit the second pitch for another base hit. Up stepped the left-hand hitting O'Neill, who homered against Millwood in an interleague game last season and was 2-for-2 lifetime.
Millwood immediately put O'Neill in an 0-2 hole. But O'Neill stayed alive by fouling three pitches off -- including a smash down the right-field line that hit umpire Randy Marsh in the side.
On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Millwood went to a curveball. O'Neill reached out and drilled it into center field to score Knoblauch with the first run of what turned into a 7-2 rout.
Millwood's two-strike troubles weren't over in the first. He got Bernie Williams to ground into a double play -- it was a 2-1 pitch -- but that didn't get him out of the inning. Millwood surrendered a run-scoring single to Tino Martinez on a 1-2 curveball, scoring Jeter.
One batter later, he got ahead of Scott Brosius with two quick strikes. But Brosius worked the count to 2-2 and singled to center field to plate Martinez with the third run of the inning.
Five of the first six Yankee hits came with two strikes -- and by the third inning, Millwood, who hadn't allowed more than two runs in his last 12 starts, was out of the game -- his shortest outing of the season. He allowed eight hits to 13 batters he faced.
"They've got good hitters over there and they take advantage of mistakes." said Atlanta catcher Greg Myers. "(Millwood) was a little off in his location and they're good hitters."
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