SEATTLE (AP) -- Alfonso Soriano got his mark, Bernie Williams just missed.

Soriano homered to become the only second baseman to post a
30-30 season and Williams' streak ended at 11 straight hits -- one
short of the record -- as the New York Yankees beat Seattle 8-3 Saturday.

"I think it was a great run,'' Williams said. "I had a lot of fun with it. And obviously you don't expect those things to last. It just wasn't meant to be.''

Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and John Vander Wal also homered as
the Yankees won their sixth in a row.

Soriano hit his 30th homer in the seventh inning off Mariners
reliever James Baldwin. Soriano, in his second full season at just
24 years old, earlier stole his AL-leading 34th base.

Soriano hit his 29th homer last Sunday off Oakland's Mark
Mulder.

"Now, I want to forget about 30-30,'' he said. "Now, I want to keep going and play hard every day because the season's not over yet.''

Williams singled in the first inning off Ryan Franklin (4-3),
then grounded out to third baseman Jeff Cirillo in the third.

Franklin said Williams had good karma going for him in the first.

"He didn't hit it hard,'' Franklin said. "He just rolled it between Cirillo and (shortstop Carlos) Guillen. He had a little -- I don't want to say luck because he is such a good hitter -- but he had a little something working for him.''

Williams came up one hit shy of tying the major league mark of 12 consecutive hits set by Mike "Pinky'' Higgins of the 1938 Boston Red Sox and tied by Walt Dropo of the 1952 Detroit Tigers.

Williams reached base safely in 13 straight plate appearances, three shy of the mark set by Ted Williams with the Red Sox in 1957.

After going 4-for-4 Friday night, Williams said he didn't want to know what the record was. But he admitted after Saturday's game that he found out anyway.

"I made a few calls last night and for some reason people watching the game (on TV) said, 'Oh, my God, you know what?''' Williams said.

Williams enjoyed watching Soriano succeed.

"That guy's awesome,'' he said. "He's still got a month and a half to go. He could be 40-40.''

Soriano smiled at the 40-40 suggestion.

"I don't want to think about it because I had 29 and needed one more homer and I play five or six games (five) and no hit a homer. So I don't want to think about 40-40 or whatever.''

Yankees manager Joe Torre said Soriano was a player with unlimited potential.

"We don't know what the ceiling is for this kid,'' Torre said. "Hopefully, he stays healthy. That's where you need to be lucky.''

Mike Mussina (15-6) won his second straight start and improve his record to 3-3 since the All-Star break.

The Yankees won a matchup of division leaders and improved to a season-high 33 games over .500 (77-44).

Soriano joined Bobby Bonds (1975) as the lone Yankees players to
reach the 30-30 mark. Soriano also tied the team record for home
runs by a second baseman, set by Joe Gordon in 1940.

The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the first on Robin Ventura's RBI
single. They made it 5-0 in the fourth on Posada's two-run homer,
his 20th of the season, followed by a solo homer by Vander Wal and
Jeter's run-scoring single.

The Mariners scored two runs in the sixth on John Olerud's RBI
infield out and Edgar Martinez's sacrifice fly. Olerud had a
sacrifice fly for Seattle in the eighth.

Mussina, who is 13-5 against Seattle in his career, went seven innings and allowed two runs on five hits and three walks, with five strikeouts.

"It used to be one good inning would make me more optimistic,'' said Mussina, who has a 5.65 ERA in the second half of the season. "But to string together seven pretty good innings against a very good ballclub is reason to be optimistic.''

Steve Karsay got five outs for his fifth save.

In the first two games of a weekend series, the Yankees have outscored the Mariners 17-6, outhit them 25-16 and outhomered them 5-1. And New York will start Roger Clemens, who has a 22-12
lifetime record against the Mariners, in the series finale Sunday.

Seattle manager Lou Piniella was asked if his team was flat.

"Flat?'' he replied. "We've gotten the stuffing beat out of
us. What are you talking about `Flat?'''

Game notes
Williams was 2-for-5, with a double in the eighth, and now
is hitting .339, up 17 points before he started his 11-for-11
streak. He's second in the league in hitting behind Seattle's
Ichiro Suzuki. ... Rondell White of the Yankees ended an 0-for-27
slump, the longest of his career, with a single in the second. ...
Suzuki was in CF and Mark McLemore in RF in a revamped Mariners'
outfield, caused by the benching of CF Mike Cameron. Suzuki has been in RF for the Mariners during the regular season since coming to Seattle from Japan for the 2001 season.