Oh yes, they call him the streak

Hey, we got to be happy with the Yankees for more than 24 hours - an no rainouts were involved! The Yankees indeed put back to back wins on the books, taking a big first game from the Red Sox, 6-2. Coming on the heels of Sunday night's win over the Mets, the Yankees moved to 9.5 games back of the 1st place Sox with some suddenly hot bats and pitching that was good enough.

A-Rod homered for the 3rd straight game, a tremendous blast off of Tim Wakefield that landed somewhere over in the UK. The first inning HR jump started the offense and set the tone for the night. It was A-Rod's major league leading 18th of the season and number 482 of his career.

Johnny Damon took steps to get out of his season long funk with a 3 hit, 2 stolen base night. In fact the Yankees were very aggressive with Wakefield on the mound, stealing 4 bases in 5 attempts.

Chien-Ming Wang didn't have his best command, but the team's ace pitched like one, limiting the Sox to 2 runs over 6 1-3 innings. The Wanger evened his record at 3-3, lowering his ERA to 4.28 in the process. Mike Myers, Brian Bruney, Scott Proctor, and Kyle Farnsworth finished up the final 2 2-3 innings. Mariano Rivera was warming up in the bullpen just in case.

The Yankees offense came up big for the 2nd straight night to back their starter. Jason Giambi, who has been nothing short of miserable lately, launched a knuckler into the upper deck to start the 2nd, for a 3-0 lead. Later in the inning, Derek Jeter delivered a 2-out RBI single to push the advantage to 4-0. The hit extended Jeter's hitting streak to 16 and raised his average with runners in scoring position and 2 outs to .650 (13-20).

Robinson Cano finished off the scoring with a 2-run triple in the 5th. Then it was down to the pitching. Proctor came on in relief of Bruney with 2 on and 2 out in the 8th, and immediately hit Alex Cora to load the bases. But Julio Lugo bounced into a force out to end the inning. The Manny-Ortiz combo went 2-7 with 2 RBI and 2 walks, but the Sox managed only 7 hits total on the night.

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About the only downside of the game was Jorge Posada going for the collar to end his career high 15 game hitting streak.