Six straight starts from the rotation without an implosion, six consecutive wins, six games above .500. The Yankees have either made some sort of deal with the devil or they are actually playing to their potential.
This interleague stuff sure is fun for the Yankees.
Last night they finally let Darrell Rasner enjoy life in the win column by hammering reigning NL Cy Young award winner Jake Peavy in an 8-5 victory over the Padres at the Stadium.
It got dicey late, with Brian Giles and Adrian Gonzalez hitting consecutive homers in the seventh against Edwar Ramirez and Chase Headley taking Kyle Farnsworth deep in the eighth, but Mariano Rivera finally tamed the Padres in the ninth, giving the Yanks their first six-game winning streak of the season.
This certainly wasn’t the best the Yankees have seen from Rasner (4-4), but it was better than the clunker he hurled in Oakland last week, when he allowed seven runs over 32/3 innings for his fourth straight loss.
“He gave us a shot to win and we got another win,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He did a good job.”
Rasner labored through five innings, throwing 96 pitches, but held San Diego to two earned runs on three hits and five walks with four strikeouts.
“The walks absolutely bugged me,” Rasner said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever walked five guys. That’s tough. You’ve got to make them earn getting on base, and tonight I didn’t.”
Peavy (5-4) lasted four innings in which he allowed four runs – three earned – on six hits and two walks.
Maybe the best sign for the Yanks was the manner in which they responded after the homers by Gonzalez and Giles in the seventh pulled San Diego within 5-4.
In the bottom of the inning, Derek Jeter ripped a leadoff double against Justin Hampson before Bobby Abreu’s single added a run. Abreu stole second – the Yanks’ fourth stolen base against erratic-throwing catcher Luke Carlin – before Alex Rodriguez‘s RBI single provided a three-run cushion.
Farnsworth needed the boost. Headley homered leading off the eighth and Khalil Greene doubled with one out, but the right-hander escaped further trouble by striking out Carlin and getting Jody Gerut to fly out. Johnny Damon’s RBI single in the eighth got the Yanks another run before Rivera recorded his 19th save in as many tries.
“You need to keep tacking on [runs], because you can’t expect people to be perfect every night they go out there,” Girardi said.
Rodriguez made it four straight games with a homer, launching a solo shot into the netting behind the left-field fence in the third inning that increased the Yankees’ lead to 4-2. The single in the seventh gave Rodriguez 29 RBIs in 28 games since returning from the disabled list last month.
The Yanks had added to their lead in the fifth, getting an RBI single from Jorge Posada after Rodriguez smashed a leadoff single and stole second.
Rasner barely survived the third inning, getting Headley to fly out with the bases loaded, after the Padres scored twice to slice the Yankees’ lead to 3-2.
Edgar Gonzalez’s two-run double was the big hit in an inning Rasner threw 41 pitches, allowing two hits and walking three. Greene drew a leadoff walk before Carlin singled. Gonzalez, with one out, doubled in two runs, but Rasner escaped without allowing another run despite walking Adrian Gonzalez and Tony Clark in succession later in the inning.
“It was a tough one. I struggled with command tonight,” Rasner said. “Most of the hitters, they bailed me out tonight. They did a great job.”
mpuma@nypost.com
Yankees 8 Padres 5