On a night when Mike Mussina did not have his best stuff and the Yankees did not play their sharpest, the Bronx Bombers nonetheless topped the Seattle Mariners 3-2 thanks to another superb bullpen effort.

These two teams are similar in so many ways. Both have an aggressive running game, a lights out bullpen, stellar defense, a versatile lineup of contact hitters, and several top flight starters. But the Yankees rotation came into the series in an ideal configuration, while the Mariners were forced to go with their #3 starter, Aaron Sele, yesterday, and to hurry ace Freddie Garcia to the mound in Game Two on only three days rest.

Both starters struggled at the beginning, but then got stronger as the game progressed. Garcia recovered the feel for his slider by the fourth, and Mussina got his curveball working by the fifth. As such, the game was decided before the game was half over. Both clubs know they must score early, or face coming from behind against a string of tough relievers.

The Yankee runs came in the second when Tino Martinez singled, followed by a walk to Jorge Posada. Paul O'Neill, one of Game One's heroes with his two run homer, flied out to left. Scott Brosius, mired in a miserable postseason slump, then came to the plate and doubled on the first pitch from Garcia. Both the slow Tino and the slower Jorge crossed the plate as the ball rattled around in the left field corner.

Two batters later Chuck Knoblauch had his second hit of the game (and fifth of the series) as he lined a shot into center field that Mike Cameron appeared to get a glove under. But Umpire Ed Rapuano ruled the ball trapped, not caught, and Brosius scored. (Replays showed Rapuano made the correct call.)

Those three runs would be all New York would get. These Yankees have maintained their half-decade of postseason dominance by pouncing on opponents' mistakes, while somehow keeping their own from hurting them. Tonight, there were various baserunning miscues--Paul O'Neill was picked off first, Chuck Knoblauch and Tino Martinez were caught stealing--and various opportunities to pad their lead as the game progressed were squandered. There were adventures in the field as well. Tino Martinez threw low and wide to second to on a force play and only a great stretch by Derek Jeter kept it from being an error. A two-base error by Bernie Williams allowed the dangerous Ichiro Suzuki to lead off the third from second base.

But the Mariners fell short of the mark, even though Seattle did make Mike Mussina pay for two small mistakes of his own. Ichiro was left stranded at second base in the first and at third in the third. Stan Javier was left on third in the second. Despite these threats, Moose held them off until the fourth. With one out, Mussina snapped off a breaking ball that did not break, and hit Mike Cameron on the arm. The next batter, Stan Javier, then hit a shot 416 feet over the centerfield wall for two runs.

Maybe that was the wake-up call Mussina needed -- the first two runs he has earned in 22 innings of postseason work -- as he then retired the next eight in a row, getting the ball to Ramiro Mendoza in the seventh. After a limping but still dangerous Edgar Martinez singled in the eighth, Joe Torre went to Mariano Rivera for five outs.

Mo recorded his twenty second straight postseason save. When asked how he felt about that accomplishment he replied, "I don't think about it, I just go and do it."

"They're all pros over there," Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said of the Yankees after the game, but he expects his record-tying club to force the series to return to Seattle, and stated it emphatically to the media.

Joe Torre knows it's too early to count the M's out of things yet. "The kind of year they had, [Lou] knows what they are capable of doing. [When he says they'll take the series back to Seattle], that's the confidence you show in your ballclub. It's similar to what I told my club in Oakland."

In fact, the Mariners can take heart because of the accomplishments of this Yankee team. Down 0-2 and needing to win at least two of three in their opponent's ballyard? They know it can be done because the Yankees did it against Atlanta in the 1996 World Series, and against Oakland just last week.

But the Yankees also know they only need two more wins to make Seattle's magic 116-win season into a memory. The past five postseasons are littered with the crushed hopes of good teams who nonetheless found themselves out-pitched, out-scored, or just plain out-played by the New York Yankees. The series continues Saturday afternoon in New York.

This article originally appeared at YankeeBaseball.net.