BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : AL PLAYOFFS : Cora Comes Up Big For Mariners

Seattle second baseman Joey Cora was on the long and the short end of the Mariners’ 6-5 victory.

The diminutive infielder homered to right field in the third inning, only the eighth homer of his career, to give Seattle a 1-0 lead, and he started the game-winning rally in the 11th with a bunt single down the left-field line.

The bunt was an identical replay of the two bunt singles Cora had in Game 4, when he tapped the ball toward first base and eluded Don Mattingly’s tags. Cora eventually scored the tying run on Edgar Martinez’s double.

“What’s unbelievable is he hasn’t done that all year,” Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said. “Those were great bunts. Mattingly is as good a first baseman as you’ll find on the planet. When you beat him to the bag, that’s something.”

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While the Mariners were celebrating in their clubhouse, Mattingly was contemplative. Mattingly, who made the playoffs for the first time in his 14-year career, is eligible to become a free agent, so Sunday could have been his last game as a Yankee.

“I don’t know how it will work out, and I don’t know when I’ll know,” Mattingly said. “The future is the last thing on my mind.”

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The Yankees (11) and Mariners (11) set a post-season record by combining to hit 22 home runs in the five games, shattering the previous series record of 17, set by the Yankees (nine) and Brooklyn Dodgers (eight) in the 1953 World Series (six games) and again by Brooklyn (nine) and New York (eight) in the 1955 World Series (seven games). . . . Mariner right fielder Ken Griffey Jr. set a record for most home runs in a five-game series with five, breaking the previous mark of three, set by the Mets’ Rusty Staub in 1973.. . . . The Cy Young Award winners from 1993 (Jack McDowell), ’94 (David Cone) and the likely ’95 winner (Randy Johnson) pitched in Game 5.