Blood on the Tracks in Subway Series

NEW YORK – Alex Cora might as well have been swinging a licorice stick. That's how effective his bat had been every time he stepped into the box and looked out at pitcher A.J. Burnett. Cora was 0-for-19 against Burnett, with seven strikeouts, and so of course Cora's manager did the only sensible thing Saturday night, when the Yankees played the Mets.

Jerry Manuel made Cora the Mets' leadoff hitter.

Snorting, charging bulls have been known to treat waving red capes with more kindness.

"I'm due, man. Have to be due," Cora kept saying to anyone who mentioned his total failure against Burnett, the curveball-throwing maestro who over the winter signed a five-year, $82 million deal with the Yankees. It wasn't just reporters picking at Cora's pitiful stats vs. Burnett. He heard about his ineptitude from fans, from taxi drivers, from the weatherman on an area cable station.

Cora figured nothing lasts forever. Manuel figured Mets fans hadn't reason to bite their nails down to a nub in 24 whole hours. Burnett figured it had been a while since he flirted with a no-hitter.

And so it was that the Subway Series came screeching into the sixth inning at Citi Field, with Burnett cruising along splendidly against an offensively challenged Mets lineup. Burnett's curve was especially dangerous, cruelly teasing the Mets hitters with a sharp dive. Burnett struck Cora out in his first at-bat, Cora lined to center field in the third, and now here was the sixth, the Yankees having turned a tight game through five innings into a 5-0 lead, and Cora again replayed in his mind the words Kobe Bryant uttered during the NBA playoffs.

"When he had a bad game he'd say, 'Hey, when that happens I keep shooting because the next one is going to go in,' " Cora said. "I've been saying that for the last five years."

Burnett followed a fastball to Cora with a backdoor breaking ball that Cora drove cleanly into right-center, ruining Burnett's no-hit bid. It was the only hit the Mets managed all night, a worrisome sign that their grittiness and pluck is beginning to dissipate like fairy dust.

Behind Burnett's brilliant outing, the Yankees beat the Mets 5-0, in the fifth game of an interleague series that comes to a merciful ending Sunday night. Burnett pitched seven marvelous innings, striking out a season-high 10 while walking only three, and a Yankee lineup depleted by flu (Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon both sat out) still managed to turn cavernous Citi Field into a bandbox.

The Mets have all sorts of trouble hitting home runs in their own park – injuries to Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes don't help – but leave it to the Bronx Bombers to show how it's done. In the first 37 games at Citi Field, only Washington's Nick Johnson and Adam Dunn had slugged opposite-field homers. The Yankees hit three in two games, beginning with Alex Rodriguez's smash to right-center Friday (the first by a right-handed hitter). Nick Swisher rocked a slider off Tim Redding deep into the left-field seats Saturday for a 1-0, third-inning Yankee lead, and Jorge Posada channeled his inner youth with a sixth-inning, three-run blast that curled over the left-center wall.

Think the Mets can't wait to return to the National League East? In the first two games this weekend, the Yankees have outscored the Mets, 14-1, outhit the Mets, 22-4, and the way this is going, the Mets will catch whatever germs the Yankees brought with them and spend Sunday hacking up lungs. With four wins in five games against their crosstown nemesis, the Yankees have already clinched the series, and it's probably time for Yankee fans to switch their obsession back to a real rival, like the Red Sox.

CC Sabathia and his bionic arm befuddled the Mets Friday, holding them to three hits over seven innings. Burnett one-upped Sabathia one night later, and that, dear friends, is exactly why the Yankees spent $243.5 million on the two free agents over the winter.

"You can say I was inspired, definitely," Burnett said. "I thought about his game all last night. And I've told him a handful of times over the season, 'I can't wait to throw behind you, Big Man, I can't wait.' "

The odd thing is, the tattooed, pie-tossing Burnett wasn't nearly as nasty as he was the last time he faced the Mets. That was a 15-0 Yankee laugher on June 14, in the Bronx, when Burnett allowed a stingy four singles in seven scoreless innings.

"I really felt A.J. had better stuff at Yankee Stadium than he had today," said Manuel, the Mets manager who, like his team, appeared drained of all energy.

"Seems like every time I play against him he has great stuff, since 2004. It might be me," said Cora, the Mets shortstop who has ably filled Reyes' spot and a leadership void, but who glumly admitted after Saturday's loss that the strength it took to hold together a pieced-together team was finally cracking.

The All-Star lineup the Mets boasted at the start of the season is now mostly made up of Triple-A call-ups trying to keep the team above the .500 mark until the big bats return. Manuel preaches staying afloat through the All-Star break, a reasonable philosophy as long as the Philadelphia Phillies keep blowing leads. The Mets took three of four games against St. Louis last week, prompting Cora to say, "Don't feel sorry for the Metropolitans. We're not as bad as people think." But after Sabathia and then Burnett ripped through the Mets' bats, Manuel admitted the crisis might be wearing down his team.

"That's a legitimate question. Are we worn down by this? I don't know the answer," Manuel said, though his body language said otherwise.

"You know what? Today was the first day I felt like it hit us," Cora said. "I can tell we didn't have that bounce in our step."

Of course, pluck, grit and guts hadn't much chance against Burnett's devastating curveball. It dropped like a tear against the first five strikeout victims, and a couple of terrific defensive plays behind Burnett stopped the Mets from doing any damage beyond Cora's single. Brian Bruney and David Robertson each threw perfect innings in relief, to complete the one-hitter.

At age 24, despite throwing a fastball that hadn't been tamed, Burnett pitched a no-hitter for the Florida Marlins in 2001, against San Diego. He walked nine that night, then spent the next eight seasons striving for another no-no. Melky Cabrera's running, diving, one-handed grab of Daniel Murphy's line drive on the left-field warning track in the fifth inning Saturday suggested Burnett might get his wish.

"That's when you start thinking it might happen," Burnett said. "To have guys out there running around and diving everywhere makes you go harder.

"I was pretty much shooting for it, you know, from probably the fourth on."

The guy who had done nothing but swing licorice sticks against Burnett burst the bid. On this night, that's about all the Mets can claim.