Andy Pettitte and another barrage of home runs at the new Yankee Stadium carried New York to a win that started what figures to be a challenging week.
Pettitte recovered from two wild outings, Johnny Damon hit a tiebreaking home run in the sixth inning and the Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 5-3 Monday night.
Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher and Derek Jeter also homered for the Yankees, who got all their runs on longballs as Andy Sonnanstine allowed a career-high four. Tampa Bay’s Gabe Kapler hit his first home run of the season.
There have been 105 homers in 29 games at the $1.5 billion bandbox, a sharp increase from the 160 last season at the original Yankee Stadium. It was the 10th five-homer game at the new ballpark.
Damon broke a 3-3 tie in the sixth with a drive to right off Sonnanstine (4-6), and Jeter chased him with a leadoff drive in the eighth. Nine of Damon’s 12 home runs this season and six of Jeter’s eight have come at home.
The Yankees improved the AL’s best record to 34-23 and are 21-0 when allowing three runs or fewer. They headed to Boston after the game for a three-game series against the Red Sox, who are 5-0 against New York this year. The Yankees then return home for a weekend Subway Series against the Mets.
Pettitte (6-2) allowed three runs – two earned – and five hits in six innings, striking out a season-high seven. After walking 11 in his previous two starts, he cut his bases on balls to three.
Phil Hughes, bumped to the bullpen so Chien-Ming Wang could rejoin the rotation, followed with his first major league relief outing following 28 career starts. Hughes pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, Phil Coke followed with a hitless eighth and Mariano Rivera finished with a perfect ninth for his 14th save in 15 chances – his second straight 1-2-3 outing against the Rays after allowing four runs in a rare loss Saturday.
New York has won two in a row against the defending AL champions at the new Yankee Stadium after losing the first three meetings of the year there.
Sonnantine gave up five runs and six hits in seven-plus innings.
All-Star third baseman Evan Longoria returned to the Rays’ starting lineup after missing nearly a week with an injured left hamstring and went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and a walk. Since injuring the leg while running out a grounder last Tuesday, Longoria had been limited to a pair of pinch-hitting appearances against the Yankees.
“He came in. He was adamant. He felt ready to go today, so we threw him out there,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said.
Teixeira’s solo homer in the first and Swisher’s two-run drive in the second built a 3-0 lead, but the Rays tied the score in the fourth after Alex Rodriguez bobbled Ben Zobrist’s leadoff grounder to third for an error. Michel Hernandez had an RBI single and Kapler followed with a two-run homer, Kapler’s first home run since Sept. 7 for Milwaukee off San Diego’s Chris Young.
Notes:@ The Yankees have made at least one error in six straight games since the end of their record 18-game errorless streak. … Tampa Bay 2B Willy Aybar was scratched about 40 minutes before the first pitch because of a migraine. Ben Zobrist moved from shortstop to second, and Reid Brignac took over at shortstop. … New York did not have an at-bat with runners in scoring position after going 0-for-9 Sunday.