Pettitte Delivers an Ace Performance

The Yankees made it three straight wins last night over the teams their chasing in the AL East behind a star turn by Andy Pettitte. The Yankees ace tossed 4-hit ball over 8 scoreless innings in the Yankees 5-0 win. In out pitching Rays ace Scott Kazmir, Pettitte helped move the Yankees to within 7.5 games of the Rays for the division lead, and remain 4.5 back of the Red Sox for the Wild Card.

Derek Jeter had the key hit and the key defensive play in the game as the Yankees moved to six games over .500. The game was scoreless in the bottom of third when Robinson Cano lead off with a single and Jose Molina followed with a double. With two on and none out, Kazmir fired strike three pitches past Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera to get within an out of the jam. Jeter has not hit up to par this season, but he's still been solid with men in scoring position, and he came through again, doubling off the base of the wall in right field for a 2-0 lead.

Pettitte cruised through the first six innings, allowing just one base runner to reach 2nd base. B.J. Upton led off the 7th with a single, and after Pettitte struck out Carlos Pena, stole 2nd base. After Evan Longoria went down swinging, Dionner Navarro reached on an infield single to put the tying runners in scoring position with 2 outs. And that's when the Captain came through again. Much maligned for his lack of range, Jeter went deep in the hole at shortstop to stop Willy Aybar's grounder and threw to Cano to force Navarro at 2nd base for an inning escaping play. A fired up Pettitte punched the air to emphasize the play.

With Kazmir's pitch count up to 97 after 5 innings, Rays manager Joe Maddon went to the pen and the Yankees took advantage. Melky Cabrera took Gary Glover deep in the 8th for his 8th home run of the season and a 3-0 Yankees lead. Bobby Abreu added an RBI double and Cano an RBI single to push the advantage to 5-0, allowing Mariano Rivera to have a seat for the night.


News and Notes

Andy Pettitte struck out 5 Rays to top 1,500 career strikeouts as a Yankee.

Hideki Matsui took 45 swings in batting practice yesterday and felt fine afterwards.

Joe Girardi told Newsday's Kat O'Brien that he doesn't see Phil Hughes pitching until September. The Yankees phenom has still not thrown off a mound in his recovery from a fractured rib. Johnny Damon went to Tampa and hopes to swing a bat soon. Brian Bruney will pitch for Trenton on Saturday.

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