Garcia provides template for others

There existed a time when, on a day like Saturday, opposing players would board the bus to the ballpark, learn they were facing Freddy Garcia and groan.

Ron Washington, then the Athletics' third-base coach, and Michael Young, then the Rangers' second baseman, can speak firsthand about Garcia's time as the ace of a stellar Seattle Mariners team, when the righthander's fastball traveled faster than 90 mph. Now they can bear witness to Garcia's first start as a Yankee, a much different experience with a similar result.

Garcia, 34, rarely throwing as hard as 86 mph, handcuffed the potent Rangers lineup Saturday, leading the Yankees to a 5-2 win over Texas on a bitterly cold day at Yankee Stadium.

In throwing six shutout innings in which he allowed only two hits and a walk, Garcia put on a survival clinic for a team that figures to rely heavily on young pitchers and those well past their prime.

This outing should serve as the instructional film.

"Freddy used to be power," Rangers manager Washington said. "But Freddy's smart."

"He's not the Freddy that I would see early in my career, in Seattle, but still effective," echoed Young, who started at first base. "He competes. He battles."

"I think a good pitcher, when they don't have good stuff, they go out there and perform. Compete," Garcia said. "That's all I can do. I don't have the velocity I used to have. I think that's all about competing. Go out there and compete, and good things will happen."

That Garcia had only one inning on his 2011 ledger before Saturday, having seen his first start pushed back twice by rainouts, reflects his low place in the Yankees' hierarchy. His launch was delayed longer than a Guns N' Roses album.

Then he took the mound against a tough lineup, with a first-pitch temperature of 46 degrees, a driving wind and an occasional sprinkle that prompted the Yankees to reward fans with an offer for another game. And he sucked all of that drama out of the afternoon.

Fastballs. Changeups. Sliders. Splitters (his one strikeout, of Ian Kinsler in the sixth, came on one of those). Curveballs.

"I have to go and throw some different pitches every time at bat," Garcia said. "I know what they're looking for. I've got five pitches, so I started with a split-finger, a slider. I set them up all of the time."

Said Washington: "He's smart in the way he uses his fastball. He'll run it way in on you and spot it down and away. Other than that, he's flipping a changeup up there. His curveball. His split. He's around the zone.

"The worst thing you can do is try to pull him. I think we got a lot of 5-3s, 6-3s."

True enough: Garcia got four groundouts to third and three to shortstop, all from righty hitters.

Alex Rodriguez, Garcia's teammate from his Seattle prime, likened Garcia to a late-career David Cone. A-Rod even pointed out that Cone, like Garcia, wore No. 36 with the Yankees. A-Rod said of Garcia: "He knows what the hitters are looking for. He knows how to throw away from the barrel."

In the terrible conditions, the Rangers looked as though they couldn't wait to get back on that bus and return to the warmth of their Manhattan hotel.

Garcia? "I don't lie. That's pretty cold," he said. "You play baseball, you've got to deal with whatever is that day."

The Yankees' season could depend upon their many fringy pitchers heeding that lesson.