Wang goes the distance for win
Four-run third eases right-hander's complete-game effort
By Jon Greenberg / MLB.com

CHICAGO -- Chien-Ming Wang's best game of the season was probably last month in Seattle, when he lost a perfect game in the eighth after retiring the first 22 hitters.

"That game was pretty good," Yankees manager Joe Torre said, shaking his head. "Why do you have to remind me about those things?"

Maybe Wang's stuff was a touch off his Seattle best on Wednesday in Chicago, but his performance was more meaningful and just as dominating. Wang threw the Yankees' first complete-game victory since, well, his last one on July 28, 2006, against Tampa Bay (a 6-0 win), as the Yankees backed him up with a four-run third inning en route to a 5-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox for their second straight win.

The 27-year-old Wang notched his third complete game, using all of his pitches -- slider, curveball and sinker especially -- to shut down an occasionally potent White Sox lineup. Wang, who won for the fourth time in five starts to improve to 5-4, gave up five hits and one walk, while striking out four. He needed only 104 pitches. To put that number in perspective, he threw 112 pitches in 5 2/3 innings in his last start.

"He's very business-like about what he does and he's pretty good at it," Torre said.

"He threw the ball incredible today," said Alex Rodriguez, whose two-run single with the bases loaded highlighted the third, the club's second four-run frame in as many days. "That was probably as good a game as he's thrown with the Yankees, as far as I can remember."

Wang's performance gave the bullpen a much-needed rest. Mike Mussina worked five innings Saturday, Andy Pettitte left in the fifth Sunday, Matt DeSalvo couldn't make it out of the second on Monday and Tyler Clippard went just five Tuesday. With Mussina going Thursday, Pettitte Friday and Roger Clemens making his season debut Saturday, the bullpen may be called again pretty soon to do some heavy lifting.

"It's very important," Torre said of Wang's outing. "Especially because we went through some people in the bullpen [Tuesday] night and we had a long weekend. That was a big lift."

Torre praised Wang for using his slider and curveball to set up his heavy sinker, inducing 14 groundouts. The White Sox only run came on a Juan Uribe groundout in the third.

"Some days his sinker is better than other days," Torre said. "Today, it was pretty good, it was exploding. But he threw some real good sliders today. He struck out Uribe on a slider [in the sixth]. He was throwing some good pitches."

Wang said he felt in control of all of his pitches and slowed his pace accordingly. No one approached him to see if he wanted out before the ninth, and he thought nothing of the complete game.

"The team win is most important," he said.

The Yankees surely appreciate that thought. They have a chance to win the four-game series Thursday night and claim back-to-back series for the first time this season. Another win would also give them a three-game winning streak for just the third time this season. They've yet to win four straight.

"[Wednesday] we can do something we haven't done in a while, win three in a row," Torre said.

The Yankees gave Wang all the runs he needed in the third. No. 9 hitter Miguel Cairo, who started at first base for the second straight game, led off the inning with a single, stole second, and scored on Johnny Damon's double. Derek Jeter singled, Bobby Abreu walked and Rodriguez scored two with a hit to center. After a slow start out of the box, he was called out sliding into second, though replays showed he may have been safe. A-Rod argued with second-base umpire Gary Darling, and Torre came out to argue as well. Sox starter Javier Vazquez then walked Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui's sac fly scored Abreu. The sacrifice turned into a double play as Posada was tagged out going to second to end the inning.

"That was a good inning for us," Rodriguez said. "For all of our pitchers, we like to score runs early and often to get them some confidence."

Damon, looking invigorated in his role as the designated hitter, had two doubles, and Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera and Cairo each had two hits. Posada added his 21st double of the season, just six shy of his total last year, and Abreu added his third homer in the eighth.

Cabrera had a highlight throw in center in the sixth, gunning down speedy Jerry Owens at the plate on a Tadahito Iguchi single.

"Amazing," said Damon, the erstwhile center fielder. "I'm not sure anybody has a better arm in the game. There are not too many center fielders who can stop a running game. He's been incredible."

Vazquez (3-4) gave up four runs, seven hits and three walks in six innings. He struck out seven. Damon doubled to lead off the game, but Vazquez struck out the next three batters.

Big inning lifts Yanks past Sox

Big inning lifts Yanks past Sox
Posada's three-run double caps six-run fourth at Fenway
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

BOSTON -- For a Yankees team in need of something to kick off an unimaginable climb, some steam under the collar might be the perfect catalyst.

The Yankees were hot all around on Friday, showcasing offensive outbursts against a familiar foe, rage from their mild-mannered leader and another snapshot shouting match on the Fenway Park turf.

It wasn't brisk, cooler heads didn't always prevail and it certainly wasn't pretty, but the Yankees were willing to swap their sweat-soaked shirts, caps and manager for a victory, pounding out a 9-5 decision over the Red Sox.

"We need to be a little more fiery," said Joe Torre, who watched the remainder of the game from the visiting clubhouse after a fifth-inning ejection.

"I'm not saying I'll be a new person. It's not a plan. We showed some fight tonight, something we really need to go out there and assert ourselves."

By the time Torre turned over his lineup card to bench coach Don Mattingly, he'd already witnessed the best the Bombers' bats were going to produce, taking advantage of an ineffective Tim Wakefield.

As the right-hander's trademark knuckleball danced erratically, the Yankees piled on Wakefield for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings in securing the game early.

Robinson Cano slugged a two-run homer and Johnny Damon worked a bases-loaded walk to open scoring in the second inning, and the Yankees added six more runs in the fourth with the benefit of two passed balls and a wild pitch. The big hit in the 10-batter frame was Jorge Posada's three-run double off reliever Kyle Snyder, who assumed duties after Wakefield threw 81 pitches in just 3 2/3 innings.

"We had great at-bats," Posada said. "We got people on base and that big hit came. It's just a matter of being more patient."

"It's definitely a great way to start June," said Johnny Damon. "Here we go. This month is so important for us. We need to make up ground; not just a game or two, but five or six games. We need to get on a roll."

The Yankees seemed on the verge of adding more in the fifth, as long-struggling Bobby Abreu opened the frame by banging an offering off the Green Monster in left-center field, chugging into second base with his second double of the game.

An out and a walk later, Abreu took off for third base and appeared to get his foot in ahead of the tag, but umpire Jerry Crawford punched Abreu out.

Later, with the Red Sox in the midst of a pitching change, Torre ventured back out for a second review, but Crawford had little interest in reliving it, running Torre in a heated commercial-break display witnessed live by only the 36,785 on hand.

"He got hot, I got hot, and the result is I'm sitting in here," Torre said later from the manager's office.

"It's fun to see," Posada said. "He got his money's worth."

Having showcased a varied repertoire to best the Red Sox in his last effort against them, starter Chien-Ming Wang continued to tread carefully against Boston's lineup -- at least, until the bats blasted open the doors.

With a 13 1/2-game deficit entering play Friday, there is a certain immediacy to every action taken by a player in pinstripes -- just ask Alex Rodriguez -- whether construed as desperation or aggressiveness. Friday brought more of the latter than the former, with even a meager two-game winning streak appearing as a tantalizing prize at Wang's workload.

"He's pitched some big games for us," Torre said. "Tonight was a huge game. We really haven't been able to string anything together."

The right-hander threw 75 pitches through the first three innings, touched for runs by David Ortiz's single and Julio Lugo's groundout in the second inning, plus Dustin Pedroia's double to left in the third.

Torre said that the effort wasn't exactly vintage Wang, but it evolved over the course of the night.

"He never uses that many pitches early in the game," Torre said. "Once we got the lead for him, he was somebody else."

Given the large advantage, Wang settled and worked into the sixth before handing duties off to reliever Mike Myers, who struck out Ortiz, the only batter he faced. Wang scattered 10 hits and walked two, striking out one in a 112-pitch outing.

Relievers Brian Bruney and Kyle Farnsworth held the American League East-leading Red Sox at bay in the seventh and eighth innings, but a mundane ninth inning erupted into much more when right-hander Scott Proctor -- as he insisted -- lost control of an inside fastball, brushing Kevin Youkilis on the sleeve and helmet.

The Boston infielder wasn't quite as understanding, briefly strutting out toward the mound before being intercepted by Posada and setting off an incident that dumped both benches and bullpens into a skirmish of finger-pointing and accusations.

Proctor -- who served a four-game suspension and paid a $1,500 fine earlier this season for throwing intentionally at Seattle's Yuniesky Betancourt -- pleaded his case with home-plate umpire Brian O'Nora, and later said he sympathized with the plunked batter as well.

"I can understand why Youkilis would be mad at me," Proctor said. "Any time you get a ball thrown at your head, I'd be [ticked] too."

Proctor said he planned to appeal to O'Nora again later, but for the moment, he was reduced to raging up the tunnel to Torre's office, swearing up and down to the also-ejected manager that his 2-2 offering to Youkilis had slipped away and was not a retaliation purpose pitch for three previous Yankees hit-by-pitches in the game by three different Boston pitchers.

Proctor's ejection forced the Yankees to use three relievers to protect what began the ninth inning as a six-run lead, as Ron Villone allowed a single to Ortiz and the acting manager Mattingly lifted the veteran lefty after one pitch to Manny Ramirez, calling upon Mariano Rivera to record the final two outs.

It was borderline unorthodox and arduously time-consuming, but the Yankees could handle that given their reward. No one seemed inclined to complain about a few more minutes spent on the field.

"Winning makes a lot of things well," Posada said. "The way we're playing now, it feels right."

Bombers look to make dent in standings

Bombers look to make dent in standings

New York (22-29) at Boston (36-16), Friday, 7:05 p.m. ET

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

The vibe may be a little different by the time the Yankees' team bus pulls up on Yawkey Way on Friday afternoon, unloading cases of road-gray New York uniforms, equipment and -- of course -- the 25 members of the team that greater New England loves to hate.

Yes, it is still the Yankees and the Red Sox, and the intensity that those two passionate fan bases hold for the rivalry can't be diminished by the sluggish opening two months of the Bombers' season.

But it's an inescapable fact that the seasons have played, for the most part, into mirror images, with the Yankees struggling and the Red Sox dominating in the American League East.

This current tilt at the Fens won't change the structure of the divisional race, but as Yankees manager Joe Torre says, the standings go out the window any time the two clubs meet to play out a nine-inning battle.

"To me, it's still playing the Red Sox and it's still going to be nuts," Torre said. "Again, we're beaten up -- I don't mean physically as much as emotionally -- from what we've been going through. I don't think we're probably firing on all cylinders right now, with what's been going on, but hopefully we'll find that."

Head-to-head, the Yankees went 1-5 against the Red Sox in April and took two out of three from Boston at Yankee Stadium in May. When they report to the cramped visitors' locker room underneath the third-base grandstand at Fenway Park, the calendar will have already turned to June, and the Yankees can only hope that it spells different results.

"When we pitch well, we haven't really swung the bats well," said Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. "It's definitely been a frustrating run, the last two weeks or so. All you say is one day at a time. It's got to start with one win."

Perhaps the Yankees got that ball rolling in the final game of their series north of the border on Wednesday, snapping up a 10-5 decision from the Toronto Blue Jays.

It wasn't the prettiest of performances, and the Yankees' thirst for a victory showed in a ninth-inning play where Rodriguez shouted in the ear of Toronto third baseman Howie Clark, but desperate times may have called for desperate measures.

"We need to win," Derek Jeter said. "Every game is important. We need to win every time we go out there. We have to have the attitude of that we need to win, because we don't have the luxury of not playing well."

Carrying a winning streak into Fenway Park -- even if it is just of the one game variety -- can never be underestimated, if only because the Yankees could use something to back themselves up from the chants and catcalls that are sure to come.

"A lot of people in baseball are laughing and enjoying what's going on, and I'm not OK with that," Rodriguez said. "This is very frustrating to be involved with, but we'll turn it around."

If the weekend plays out with the craziness as so many before it have, the Yankees feel like having a little luck on their side couldn't possibly be a bad thing.

"This lifted a real cloud off of us, especially with the off-day [Thursday]," Torre said. "To have to carry that through the off-day and then into Boston would have been very difficult. Hopefully, the way we have our pitching lined up, we can start competing and have some good results."

Pitching matchup
NYY: RHP Chien-Ming Wang (3-4, 4.13 ERA)
Wang allowed three runs in the first inning of his previous start against the Angels but settled in to hold the Halos scoreless over the next seven innings of a six-strikeout, six-hit performance. Wang hasn't allowed a home run to a right-handed batter all year and has induced at least one ground-ball double play in each of his past seven starts, matching the longest streak of his career.

BOS: RHP Tim Wakefield (5-5, 3.36 ERA)
Wakefield won for the first time in three starts Saturday against the Rangers in Arlington, giving up four runs on five hits in seven innings. Over his past three starts, Wakefield has allowed 15 runs over 19 innings. In three starts this season at Fenway, he is 1-2 with a 4.05 ERA and has allowed three home runs in 20 innings. The knuckleballer is 0-2 with a 7.84 ERA in two starts this year against the Yankees, who are batting .326 against him. In 44 career games (27 starts) against New York, Wakefield is 9-15 with a 4.76 ERA.

Player to watch
Plenty of Red Sox batters have seen the ball well against Wang, but Manny Ramirez has the best batting average (.579) against the Taiwanese right-hander. The left fielder has stroked 11 hits in 19 at-bats against Wang, including two homers and five RBIs.