Yankee Bats Wake Up To Pound M's

Chien-Ming Wang has become the Yankees' skid stopper.

Wang smothered Seattle to get his 17th win, and Jorge Posada homered twice as the Yankees' slumbering offense woke up in a 12–3 victory over the Mariners last night.

Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu also homered, and Posada, Abreu and Robinson Cano had four hits each for New York, which boosted its AL wild-card lead to two games over the Mariners and 3 1/2 over Detroit. Abreu was in a 2-for-15 slump coming in and Cano was in a 2-for-16 slide.

It was a close game for most of the night, with Hideki Matsui throwing out Adrian Beltre at the plate in the fifth to preserve a 1–0 lead. New York, struggling to regain consistency in the season's final weeks, had 20 hits and busted open the game with three runs in the sixth and seven more in the seventh, taking an 11–1 lead.

Seattle lost for the 10th time in 11 games and was ensured of leaving town trailing the Yankees when the three-game series concludes Wednesday.

Wang (17–6) allowed one run and five hits in 7.1 innings, tying Boston's Josh Beckett for the major league lead in wins. He left after just 86 pitches and it was unclear whether Wang came out due to an injury. Inducing inning-ending, double-play grounders in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, Wang improved to 8–2 when pitching following Yankees' losses this season, winning his last six starts in that situation. He is 6–0 against the Mariners in his career. Beltre ended Wang's shutout bid with a seventh-inning homer — only the second by a right-handed hitter against Wang this year and the first Wang allowed to a right-hander at Yankee Stadium since Florida's Miguel Olivo connected on June 23 last year.

New York's offense cooled in losing three of four to Tampa Bay and Seattle following a three-game sweep of Boston. But Posada put the Yankees ahead with a leadoff homer in the second off Horacio Ramirez (8–5), and Rodriguez hit his major league-leading 46th homer to make it 2–0 in the sixth, a drive that landed about seven rows into the hard-to-reach upper deck in left field.

A-Rod had a scare in the seventh, when he slid into Beltre and the third baseman toppled onto his leg, causing Rodriguez to grimace in pain.

Cano chased Ramirez with an RBI single in the sixth, and Wilson Betemit made it 4–0 with a run-scoring single against Eric O'Flaherty that went off the glove of shortstop Yunieksy Betancourt. Kenji Johjima was called for catcher's interference on Matsui, putting two on with one out.

Wang had trouble in the middle innings. He walked Beltre and Ben Broussard leading off the fifth, then started Johjima off with a ball, prompting a visit from pitching coach Ron Guidry. Johjima grounded a single to left, just beyond the reach of shortstop Derek Jeter, and Matsui made a one-hop throw to the plate just to the first-base side. Posada reached across to apply the tag, and Jose Guillen grounded into a double play on the next pitch.

After Ichiro Suzuki and Jose Vidro singled with one out in the sixth, Guillen's bat broke as he hit a sharp one-hopper to Cano at second, starting another inning-ending double play.