Yankees 7
White Sox 5
Mike Mussina gave them a chance, something Roger Clemens and David Wells didn’t. Jerry Manuel gave them a break by starting the control-challenged Neal Cotts, a neophyte lefty who was working in Double-A less than three weeks ago. John Flaherty gave them life by doing the small things that often go unnoticed in the glitzy Yankees’ world and Aaron Boone reached base four times. Finally, Mariano Rivera allowed them to exhale.
All of it added up to a 7-5 victory over the White Sox yesterday in front of 40,569 at Yankee Stadium. The win sent the Yankees to Boston feeling a lot better about themselves after the White Sox had outscored them 24-4 in the first two games of the series.
The victory hiked the Yankees’ AL East lead over the idle Red Sox to 4½ games.
Mussina, who has won five of six, improved to 15-7 after overcoming a shaky first inning when he spotted the AL Central leaders two runs.
Manuel had the option of starting Mark Buehrle, who is 11-12 with a 4.01 ERA instead of Cotts, who made his fourth major league start. However, because the White Sox took the first two games, Manuel opted for the Cotts, and the 23-year-old didn’t make it out of the first inning, when the Yankees scored five runs. Cotts walked four and allowed three hits.
Flaherty drove a run home in the first with a sacrifice fly and plated another in the sixth when he executed a safety squeeze to perfection by pushing a bunt to the right side. He also drew a two-out walk in the eighth that got Alfonso Soriano to the plate. Soriano then delivered an RBI single that gave Rivera a two-run bulge to work the ninth. Rivera responded by posting his 29th save.
“We needed that from Moose,” Derek Jeter said of Mussina, who took a Carl Everett smash off his left knee to start the sixth and didn’t come out for the seventh. “It was big for us. They blew us out in the first two games.”
Early it looked like the White Sox were going to spank the Yankees for a third straight game. But after they scored two runs, Everett killed the rally by getting caught trying to steal third for the final out.
The Yankees retaliated with five runs in the first when Ruben Sierra drove in two runs and Bernie Williams and Flaherty drove in a run each. The other run scored on left fielder Carlos Lee’s error.
“It was nice we won the game after what happened the last two nights,” said Mussina, who gave up a solo homer to Everett (4-for-4) in the fourth. “It’s nice to find a positive in light of what went on here.”
After the game, Mussina said his knee was fine. Joe Torre said the bruise denied Mussina a chance to take the mound for the seventh. Jeff Nelson hurled a perfect seventh, but had to be bailed out by Gabe White in the eighth after giving up two runs that cut the Yankees’ lead to 6-5. Rivera got the last out of the eighth, then gave up an infield hit to Sandy Alomar to start the ninth and nothing else.