Pettitte Leads Yankees to Victory

Andy Pettitte reached another milestone in his illustrious Yankees career last night and more importantly, the Yankees bounced back from Tuesday night's debacle to beat the Texas Rangers 9-2.

Pettitte tied Lefty Gomez for third place on the all time franchise win list with 189. Only Whitey Ford (236) and Red Ruffing (231) have more wins than Pettitte, who is quietly having a very good second half. In fact, the Yankees have won 6 of Pettitte's last 8 starts. During that period, he's 3-1, 2.79.

Pettitte's battery mate, Jorge Posada, gave his pitcher an early boost with a long 3-run home run to center field off of Derek Holland to give the Yankees the lead in the 2nd inning.

Leading 4-2 in the 7th, the Yankees broke it open with a five run outburst. Derek Jeter didn't have a multi-hit game, but he delivered a bases loaded 2-run single to put the Yankees up 6-2. Nick Swisher added an RBI double and Mark Teixeira put the game out of a reach with a line drive 2-run single that short hopped the right field wall.

Pettitte ran into trouble in the first, but got former teammate Pudge Rodriguez to bounce into an inning ending 5-4-3 double play with the bases loaded. After that it was pretty much smooth sailing for Pettitte. He gave up a solo home run and an RBI double to David Murphy, but left after 7 innings to a big ovation.

Posada had to leave the game after taking a foul tip off the ring finger of his glove hand. It's been a recurring injury this season and he's listed as day-to-day.

Alex Rodriguez fouled a ball off his foot, but was not going to go for X-Rays as Joe Girardi had originally mentioned in his post-game press conference.

Jerry Hairston Jr. continues to produce for the Yankees since his acquisition at the trade deadline. Flling in for Johnny Damon in left field last night, Hairston hit his career high 10th home run.

A.J. Burnett tries to win the rubber game of the series this afternoon (1:05 P.M. ET) when he goes up against Dustin Nippert.

To Burnett's credit, he defused the rumored riff with Posada last night.

"I had a bad start because my mind wasn't right," Burnett said. "I didn't make good decisions. I think every pitcher has a good idea of what he wants to throw and when he wants to throw it and I didn't the last start. That's what it was. I wasn't prepared."

"It gets blown out of proportion," said Burnett, who was solid in his previous three outings, all with Posada behind the plate. "Guys miss signs all the time, and guys cross guys up all the time and guys give up hits on pitches when they'd rather throw something else all the time. It doesn't mean your catcher is bad, it doesn't mean he's doing a bad job, it doesn't mean your relationship with your catcher is bad. I don't know where all that's coming from."

Whether any of it is true or not, the media definitely was the one fueling the rumored hostilities between Burnett and Posada.