Manny Ramirez hit two more homers off an ineffective Mike Mussina, leading Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox past the perturbed Yankees, 7–5 in a game that nearly got testy last night.

With Ramirez enjoying his latest outburst against his favorite foe, Yankees reliever Kyle Farnsworth threw a 97 mph fastball behind the slugger’s neck on the first pitch of the seventh inning, drawing cheers from the sellout crowd of 55,088.

Ramirez flinched and dropped his bat, but never made a motion toward the mound. Plate umpire Larry Vanover immediately warned both dugouts, and Ramirez eventually grounded out to second. The Red Sox never retaliated. Ramirez hit his 494th home run in the first, passing Lou Gehrig and Fred McGriff for sole possession of 24th place on the career list, then added No. 495 an inning later with a mammoth, two-run shot to left.

That gave Ramirez, who likes to admire his prodigious drives, five homers this season — three in six days off Mussina (1–3). It also gave the slugger 13 hits in his past 26 at-bats against the right-hander, with four homers and 11 RBIs.

Ramirez finished with three hits for the second consecutive night and scored three times. J.D. Drew added a two-run double for the Red Sox, who earned a two-game split after losing 15–9 Wednesday night in a plodding game that took 4 hours, 8 minutes. This one was played in 3:20.

Boston won for the fifth time in six tries and snapped a five-game skid at Yankee Stadium since its previous win on May 22 last year. The next time the rivals meet is a four-game series July 3-6 in New York. Handed a 7–0 lead, Beckett (2–1) pitched a season-high eight innings and stopped New York’s three-game winning streak. He allowed Derek Jeter’s two-run single and Bobby Abreu’s RBI double in the fifth.