"Yankees win eighth in a row" June 14, 2007

By Caleb Breakey/MLB.com


NEW YORK -- Look out Boston and Detroit, the Yankees are hot on your tail.

Backed by a brilliant Mike Mussina, the Yankees steamrolled over the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night to win their eighth straight game, putting them 8 1/2 games behind the Red Sox, who got pounded by the Rockies, 12-2, in the American League East, and 4 1/2 games behind the Tigers for the AL Wild Card lead.

After the D-backs took a brief lead in the second on Chris Young's sacrifice fly, the Yankees returned the favor after Jorge Posada, who was the designated hitter on Wednesday, led off the bottom half with his eight blast of the year.

But Posada was outdone by Alex Rodriguez, who hit his Major League-leading 25th homer off D-backs starter Livan Hernandez (5-4) into the left-field stands in the third inning. A-Rod also increased his league-leading RBI total to 66.

Manager Joe Torre said A-Rod looks like his April self, when he earned the American League Player of the Month Award. As far as the moon shot that Rodriguez hit, Torre said: "He killed that ball."

The Yankees' offense paved the way for Mussina's third win of the season, as Hideki Matsui hit the third Yankees homer of the night, a three-run shot, off Hernandez.

With Posada taking a half day off by hitting DH, backup catcher Wil Nieves donned his catching gear and guided Mussina to his 7 2/3 strong innings.

"I try to make him feel comfortable, be where he wants me to be, give him a low target," Nieves said. "I just try to be in his mind, because he's got a mind of how he's going to pitch guys. He's going to do what he wants to do. Now, we're almost on the same page all the time. It's like a relationship, where we build that trust."

Nieves worked as Mussina's personal catcher for the fourth straight game. Torre said he's been combining the two on a "gut" feeling, but the 3.49 ERA that Mussina and Nieves have achieved as a batterymate couldn't hurt, either.

"It was awesome," Rodriguez said. "[Mussina] threw the ball well. For me, a great sign is when he gets up to 91 mph in the seventh inning; that's always a big key for him."

Mussina's breaking pitch accounted for a pair of shaky legs in the third, as D-backs Carlos Quentin and Conor Jackson watched strike three whiz by without a flinch of their bats.

"I threw breaking balls, just froze them," Mussina said. "Now, these guys haven't seen me pitch too much, and when I can throw a curveball for a strike, it helps me that much more."

Unlike the mixed feelings he showed when he was lifted after just 79 pitches in Chicago, Mussina waved to his family and then to the crowd as Torre replaced him in the eighth.

Fans clapped as he walked toward the dugout, and then they erupted when he acknowledged them.

"It's just a part of the excitement we've kind of created now," Mussina said. "It's a part of the atmosphere of coming to the ballpark at Yankee Stadium. It wasn't like this a month ago, and now everybody wants to come out and watch us play, and we want to get out there and keep playing games and keep the momentum going. As long as we keep playing games like this, we're going to be all right."