Yankees beat Red Sox 15-9

A-Rod hits homer No. 522

[April 17, 2008]  NEW YORK (AP) -- The Yankees and Red Sox played 774 times at Yankee Stadium entering this year. In their first meeting at the ballpark in its final season, they played as if they didn't want these tense games at this famous venue to end.

Long after Alex Rodriguez hit his 522nd home run to pass Ted Williams and Willie McCovey for 15th place on the career list, Melky Cabrera's tiebreaking groundout in a four-run fifth inning helped New York outlast Boston 15-9 Wednesday night in a glacially paced game that took 4 hours, 8 minutes.

The 24 runs were the most in a Red Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium since New York's 14-10 win on April 21, 1956, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. And the 15 runs were the most by New York against Boston in the Bronx since winning 17-9 on July 7, 1954.

Both starters were terrible, with Boston's Clay Buchholz chased in the fourth inning and New York's Chien-Ming Wang departing in the fifth. The Yankees, who outhit the Red Sox 16-14, took a 7-3 lead by scoring four runs in a bottom of the fourth that lasted 23 minutes. Then the Red Sox scored six runs in a top of the fifth that stretched for 31 minutes.

New York went ahead for good 11-9 in the fifth, when Jorge Posada hit an RBI double against Julian Tavarez (0-1) and scored the tying run on Robinson Cano's single. A walk to Chad Moeller loaded the bases for Cabrera, whose grounder led to two runs -- the second scored when Moeller slid to the outfield side of second base and into shortstop Julio Lugo, whose throw to first trying for an inning-ending double play went wide for an error.

Posada and Jason Giambi added two-run doubles in the eighth off Mike Timlin.

Moeller, starting at catcher because of injuries to Posada and Jose Molina, had three hits. Every starter had a hit as New York stretched a winning streak to three for the first time this year and stopped Boston's winning streak at four.

After Ross Ohlendorf allowed two inherited runners to score and gave up one run of his own, LaTroy Hawkins (1-0), Billy Traber and Brian Bruney followed with scoreless, three-hit relief, with Bruney getting his first save since 2005.

Wang matched his career high for runs allowed, which he set last Aug. 8 at Toronto and tied in the opener of the 2007 playoff series against Cleveland. Buchholz was no better, giving up seven runs and eight hits in 3 2-3 innings.

Manny Ramirez, a .536 hitter against Wang (15-for-28), put Boston ahead with an RBI double in the first, but Bobby Abreu hit a two-run homer in the bottom half and A-Rod went deep three pitches later for his fourth home run of the season.

Ramirez had three hits but also had words with plate umpire Tim McClelland, who called him out on strikes in the third after Ramirez had taken four steps toward first base on a 3-2 pitch.

Lugo's run-scoring grounder in the second and Sean Casey's RBI single in the fourth tied it 3-all, but the Yankees chased Buchholz in the bottom half on Moeller's broken-bat RBI double and Derek Jeter's two-run single to right. Tavarez threw a run-scoring wild pitch that made it 7-3.

That evaporated quickly in the fifth. David Ortiz had an RBI single and J.D. Drew chased Wang with a two-run single. Ohlendorf relieved and gave up a tying single to Casey and Dustin Pedroia's two-run single, which put the Red Sox ahead 9-7.

Notes: Kevin Youkilis bruised his left big toe when he fouled a ball of it. He left in the eighth inning, and X-rays were negative. ... NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman threw out the ceremonial first pitch -- in a video from the International Space Station. ... NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital became the Yankees' official hospital as part of a sponsorship deal. ... Bucky Dent, of 1978 tiebreaker playoff fame, counted down the board of regular-season games remaining at Yankee Stadium.

[Associated Press; By RONALD BLUM]

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