Rodriguez homer lifts Yankees past Red Sox
BOSTON: Alex Rodriguez homered with two out in the ninth inning to lift the New York Yankees to a 6-5 come-from-behind victory over the Boston Red Sox on Sunday and a 2-1 edge in the weekend series between the old rivals.
Rodriguez drilled an 0-2 pitch over the right center field wall to squeeze out the win for the Yankees, who had blown a 4-0 lead before tying the score at 5-5 in the eighth.
"Just battling for my life at that point," Rodriguez told reporters. "Basically I was just trying to hit the ball hard somewhere but not trying to do too much."
The homer was Rodriguez's Major League leading 20th of the season.
Mariano Rivera then held the Red Sox hitless in the bottom of the ninth for his fifth save of the season.
Robinson Cano had put the Yankees in position to win with a run-scoring triple in the eighth.
New York, riding Andy Pettitte's two-hit pitching, had grabbed a 4-0 lead with a three-run fifth inning.
RBI singles by Rodriguez and Jorge Posada and a throwing error put the Yankees in front but Boston rebounded to score five runs in the bottom half of the inning and take the lead.
Jason Varitek, Wily Mo Pena and Coco Crisp singled off Pettitte to load the bases.
After Julio Lugo struck out, Dustin Pedroia smacked a three-run double to deep center.
Pedroia then scored on David Ortiz's single, ending Pettitte's stay on the mound with the Yankees starter apparently suffering from tightness in his lower back.
Luis Vizcanio came on in relief and after intentionally walking Manny Ramirez, gave up a sacrifice fly to Kevin Youkilis to make it 5-4.
Vladimir Guerrero's two-run ninth-inning homer rallied the Los Angeles Angels to a 4-3 home win over the Baltimore Orioles. Jeremy Guthrie had pitched one-hit ball for the Orioles through seven innings.
Jeremy Bonderman won his fifth straight game and Gary Sheffield hit a two-run homer in Detroit's 9-2 road win over Cleveland that brought the Tigers within 2 1/2 games of the first-place Indians.
Agencies
(China Daily 06/05/2007 page24)
