Forget the antibiotics and chicken soup, there’s a better recipe for curing your manager’s ills.
Joe Girardi felt just well enough to manage yesterday’s game, but the color really returned to his cheeks after watching the grand triumvirate of Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera place a sting on the Rays.
The Yankees still are not scoring, but they aren’t sending back their 2-0 victory at the Stadium, either. Just a win was necessary after the manner in which Tampa Bay handled the Yanks the previous two games.
MORE COVERAGE
“To be a good team, you’re going to have to win games like this, these close ones,” Girardi said after watching the Yankees fail to score more than four runs for a sixth straight game to start the season.
But with Wang’s sinker biting, not to mention the new split-fingered fastball he recently unveiled, the Yankees didn’t need many offensive moments. Hideki Matsui’s two-run homer in the fourth seemed like plenty, especially after the game got into the hands of the dynamic duo, Chamberlain and Rivera.
Chamberlain escaped a jam Wang created in the seventh with some nasty pitches, including a fastball that registered at 101 mph on the scoreboard, before working a perfect eighth. That put Rivera in line for his third save in as many opportunities this season.
Wang (2-0) took a no-hitter into the fifth before Willy Aybar lined a single to right with one out, on the right-hander’s 66th pitch of the afternoon.
“It kind of shocked me when I heard the fans go ‘Uhhhh,’ ” said Johnny Damon, unaware that Wang had not allowed a hit to that point. “He was making it look pretty easy.”
After Robinson Cano misplayed Derek Jeter’s relay toss on a Shawn Riggans grounder, allowing Aybar to reach second base, the Rays had a threat.
But the Yankees escaped trouble when Aybar was nailed between third and the plate on a failed squeeze play with Jason Bartlett batting. Bartlett then struck out, ending the inning.
In the seventh, Wang allowed successive singles to Cliff Floyd and Eric Hinske with nobody out, putting the game into Chamberlain’s hands. Wang said his stuff was better yesterday than on Opening Night, when he held the Blue Jays to two runs over seven innings in the victory.
“Especially on my slider. I did get more movement on my slider this time,” Wang said.
Wang, who threw a split-fingered fastball on three or four occasions, including one in the first inning to strike out Carlos Pena, said he is trying to become less predictable.
“I’m trying to find more ways to get hitters out,” Wang said. “I don’t want to rely on just my sinker.”
Chamberlain entered with runners on first and third, struck out Aybar and got Riggans to hit a liner that Cano snared and turned into a double play. It was Chamberlain’s second pitch to Aybar that got the crowd’s attention, clocked at 101 mph.
“It offers you a little bit of room for error, but not much,” Chamberlain said of the high velocity of his pitches. “It can come in at 101, but leave at 140 and 500 feet.”
The Rays did not get a base runner against Chamberlain and Rivera for the final two innings.
James Shields (1-1) allowed eight hits in five-plus innings but managed to keep Tampa Bay in the game with a strong effort from left-handed reliever J.P. Howell.
The Yankees had their best chance to increase their lead in the fifth, loading the bases with two outs before Shields caught Matsui looking at strike three.
“We’re going to have these weeks during the season,” said Girardi, whose Yankees are hitting .239 through six games. “We got enough today, and that’s the big thing.”
mpuma@nypost.com