Weaver beats Yankees for 1st win since April 25

[June 04, 2011]  ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Jered Weaver found himself in the win column for the first time in over a month. Derek Jeter made him work for it, leading off the game with a 15-pitch at-bat.

Weaver tied for the AL lead with his seventh victory -- 39 days after getting his sixth one -- and No. 9 hitter Peter Bourjos singled home the go-ahead run for the Angels on Friday night in a 3-2 victory that ended the Yankees' four-game winning streak.

Jeter, an 11-time All-Star who came in 2 for 17 against Weaver, fouled off nine straight 3-2 pitches before flying out to center field. It was the right-hander's first start against New York since Game 3 of the 2009 AL championship series.

"I didn't face the Yankees last year, so I was really amped up for this one -- too amped up, as it turned out," Weaver said. "I have to be more careful not to let my emotions get the best of me. You want to come out and use your best pitches against the leadoff batter. But Jeter is a great player, and he kept fighting them off. At least we were able to get him out after all that."

As Jeter was rounding first base after the out, he and Weaver made eye contact.

"I said to him: "You've got to be kidding me," Weaver said. "I didn't think I'd get through the third inning with 15 pitches to the leadoff batter. I didn't have my good fastball command, so I tried to take something off the fastball and rely on my changeup more."

Jeter saw a total of 10 pitches in his other three plate appearances. He has gone 43 consecutive plate appearances without striking out, his longest stretch of the season.

"That was the game plan all along -- go up there and just foul off as many pitches as I could early on to get his pitch count up," Jeter joked. "It was a while -- probably the longest I've been up there. I'm not known for being up there too long."

Weaver (7-4) allowed two runs, three hits and four walks over seven innings and struck out eight to help end the Yankees' four-game winning streak.

Weaver won his first six starts of the season with a 0.99 ERA, and was 0-4 with a 3.38 ERA over his next six outings after beating Oakland 5-0 for his fifth career shutout. In his previous start last Saturday, he threw a career-high 128 pitches at Minnesota and allowed just two hits but got no decision in the Angels' 1-0 loss.

Scott Downs pitched a hitless eighth inning and rookie Jordan Walden got three outs for his 13th save in 16 chances.

Rookie Ivan Nova (4-4) allowed three runs -- two earned -- and eight hits in six-plus innings. The only Angels player the 24-year-old right-hander had faced previously was injured left fielder Vernon Wells, who has missed the last 25 games because of a groin strain.

Eight years to the day that he was named the Yankees' 11th team captain since 1900 and the first since Don Mattingly, Jeter went 0 for 3 with a walk and remained 16 hits shy of 3,000.

Bourjos snapped a 2-all tie in the fourth, driving in Russell Branyan with a line single through the left side with the bases loaded. Nova minimized the damage by striking out Maicer Izturis and retiring Erick Aybar on a flyball.

Former Yankee Bobby Abreu, who passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time doubles list last Sunday, doubled to left-center in the first inning to drive in the game's first run. He advanced on Martin's passed ball and scored on Alberto Callaspo's groundout. Nova had allowed only one first-inning run in his 17 previous big league starts.

"I wasn't crossed up," Russell Martin said. "It's just that he's got so much movement on his fastball, it's kind of unpredictable sometimes. It was just a ball that was up and I couldn't get a hold of it. I mean, they can call it a passed ball if they want, but I tried my best to catch that ball."

Martin got one of the runs back in the second with an RBI single after a leadoff double by Alex Rodriquez. New York tied it in the fourth when Jorge Posada broke out of a 1-for-18 skid with a ground-rule double that scored Rodriguez, who drew a leadoff walk.

The hit came moments after a number of Yankee fans behind the first base dugout started a chant of "Hip Hip Jorge!" The Yankees did not get another hit the rest of the game.

"Obviously when it's half Angels fans and half Yankees fans, you can't help but get a little more amped up out there," Weaver said. "It's a great atmosphere, and it's fun to be apart of that."

NOTES: Izturis came up again with the bases loaded in the eighth against Luis Ayala and flied out. ... The Yankees are playing their first series at Angel Stadium since April of last season, when Mark Teixeira wiped out Bobby Wilson in a violent collision at home plate in the rookie's first major league start behind the plate. It left Wilson with a concussion and injured left ankle that sidelined him for 21 games. "As a catcher, that's what you sign up for. That's part of the job," Wilson said. "Even getting hit the way I did, I'm not going to back down from anything."

[Associated Press]

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