Four blasts in the present trumped even the gigantic blast from the past that whirled into Yankee Stadium yesterday.
First the rain disappeared, allowing Old-Timers’ Day festivities to proceed without a hitch. And then came the real show: Home runs from Wilson Betemit, Bobby Abreu, Jose Molina and Alex Rodriguez that led the Yanks to an 8-2 thrashing of the Angels.
If the offensive spectacle wasn’t enough, Mike Mussina dominated, retiring the last 17 hitters he faced, helping the Yanks end a two-game losing skid.
Manager Joe Girardi called it a badly needed victory, considering the Yankees’ awful record on this homestand – they now have two victories in six games – and the fact his team lost a stomach-churning 1-0 game on Friday.
“This was real important for us,” Girardi said. “We’re chasing people and we need to win games.”
The four home runs matched a season high and were a welcome part of the offense on a day that began with Angel starter Jered Weaver striking out the first four batters he faced.
It went downhill from there for the right-hander, who allowed six earned runs (the four homers accounted for five of those runs) over five-plus innings.
Betemit’s two-run shot in the second was the momentum changer, after the Yankees had fallen into a 2-0 hole a half-inning earlier.
In the third, the Yankees had already taken the lead on Derek Jeter’s groundball double play when Abreu hit his fourth homer of the week, extending the lead to 4-2.
Told the Yankees began play only eighth in the AL in homers, Abreu said that was a surprising fact given the team’s big bats, but he didn’t deem it significant.
“We’ve got Alex, [Jason] Giambi and those guys, but an important part of our game is to not hit too many homers,” Abreu said.
Girardi shares that sentiment.
“I don’t really worry about home runs, I worry about runs,” said Girardi, whose Yankees began play ranked seventh in the AL in scoring. “You score runs a lot of different ways, and that’s my concern.”
Molina’s homer leading off the fifth might have been the signal this would be the Yankees’ day. Molina, who started at catcher in place of Ivan Rodriguez, mostly because of his success handling Mussina, had gone 221 at-bats without a homer dating to Sept. 5 of last season.
Alex Rodriguez‘s blast leading off the sixth gave the Yankees a four-run lead.
“We did the things today that you hope you can do every day to win a ballgame,” Mussina said. “The timing was right, we played the game the right way, good defense, pitching. You’re not going to be able to do all those things every day, but today we did.”
The Angels had taken a 2-0 lead in the second inning when, with the bases loaded, second baseman Betemit failed to complete a potential inning-ending double play by making a bad throw to first.
The ball skipped off Giambi’s glove, allowing Howie Kendrick to score from second after Garret Anderson had already crossed the plate.
Mussina was untouchable from that point, striking out Chone Figgins to end the frame and following that with five perfect innings.
A final Old-Timers’ celebration at the Stadium and a victory were all the Yanks could have asked for yesterday.
“Guys looked like they were in it today,” Mussina said. “Everybody who put on the uniform thought this was an important game today.”
mpuma@nypost.com