Byrnes making believers out of Macha and the A's
His homer off Andy Pettitte wraps up the A's series victory over the Yanks.
By Jim Van Vliet -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Monday, May 12, 2003
OAKLAND -- To anyone who would listen, Eric Byrnes has always maintained that all he has needed is a chance.
Bob Geren, who managed him for most of three seasons in Sacramento, had to be convinced. So it's no surprise that A's manager Ken Macha has been a skeptic, too.
Byrnes, who plays like he has just finished his fourth pot of coffee, got closer to making another convert Sunday.
Moved up to the No. 2 spot in Macha's Mother's Day lineup, Byrnes responded with a clinching two-run home run off Andy Pettitte, helping the A's to a 5-2 win Sunday over the New York Yankees before 45,390 sun-baked fans.
With Mark Mulder pitching his fourth straight gem, the A's rewarded their largest crowd of the season with their second series victory over the mighty Yankees in two weeks.
Though failing to complete the job for the first time in four starts, Mulder dispensed only three hits over eight innings to improve his record to 6-1.
With the denouement in question, Byrnes settled the issue in the seventh, turning on a cut fastball from Pettitte and drilling it into the left-field bleachers.
Macha, who had his doubts when he turned to Byrnes when Jermaine Dye hurt his knee late last month, is slowly becoming a member of the Eric Byrnes Fan Club.
Considering Byrnes was batting .118 at the time Dye went down, Macha had no reason to believe this human pinball machine would fill the void with such stunning success.
"Since he's been in there, he's certainly impacted a lot of games," Macha said. "He's seized his opportunity. Geren has always said that he'd give you 1,000 percent. And while he might not look pretty, he always does great."
Since replacing Dye on April 25, Byrnes has lifted his batting average to .320.
After drawing only four walks in 96 at-bats last season, he has doubled that during this stretch.
In fact, Byrnes' .392 on-base percentage convinced Macha to move him up in the batting order with Scott Hatteberg resting his ankle against Pettitte.
"You look at him and you see some holes in his game and you say, 'I don't know if he can handle the next level,' " said Geren, now the A's bullpen coach. "Then he always hits .300. He doesn't surprise me anymore. At this point, I'd never bet against him.
"More important than that, he's never been on a team that hasn't won."
After spending most of his career being ignored by the media, Byrnes can't get dressed these days without being surrounded by a crowd.
Is he enjoying life?
"Hell, yeah," he says.
Why not? Everybody is finally getting what he has known all along.
"The only one who believed I could do this was me," he said. "It's just a matter of playing. You gain confidence by playing.
"Like (Saturday). If I'd been sitting on the bench, watching Roger Clemens, I'd have said, 'There's no way I can hit this guy.' But being in there, seeing you can do it, you believe."
And the A's are beginning to believe Mulder will never lose again.
After giving up singles to Alfonso Soriano and Sacramento native Nick Johnson to open the game, he retired 15 in a row before Enrique Wilson hit his first homer of the year to lead off the sixth.
Mulder, who is 5-0 in his last five starts with a 1.07 ERA, retired the final eight batters he faced before turning things over to closer Keith Foulke in the ninth.
But Mulder was more excited about what the victory meant, should the A's and Yankees meet again. Like, in October.
"We're playing good ball right now," he said. "We're getting good pitching and timely hitting. In the past against these guys, things always seemed to go their way at the right time."
There was more encouragement.
Ron Gant hit his first home run of the year, a monster shot in the second inning that landed in the second deck in left field. And Erubiel Durazo continued to show he can hit left-handed pitchers by lining an RBI single off Pettitte in the first.
Durazo, who entered the season with a .206 average against lefties, is batting .345 against them this year.
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