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Clippard, Rodriguez help Yankees defeat White Sox

Jun 6, 2007 - 7:07 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- This time the New York Yankees received an excellent performance by one of their rookie pitchers.

Tyler Clippard pitched five effective innings and Bobby Abreu drove in the go-ahead run in a four-run sixth as the Yankees posted a 7-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday.

Alex Rodriguez homered and drove in three runs for New York, which bounced back after a 6-4 loss Monday night.

Clippard (3-1) yielded one run, five hits and three walks to win his second consecutive game. The righthander, who struck out four, has won all three of his road games in 2007.

"I'm a young guy, I don't really know how many chances I'm going to get," Clippard said. "I want to take advantage of those opportunities. So far so good. I'm going to continue to do what I've been doing."

It was a much better effort than the start by fellow rookie Matt DeSalvo, who surrendered three runs and four hits in just 1 1/3 innings on Monday. DeSalvo was optioned back to Class AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre after the game.

"The pitcher definitely has to set the tone for our being consistent," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "We went into the first two games of this series with two kids, and to be able to come away with a win in the second one, now we have a little more experience going."

With the scored tied at 1-1 in the sixth, Johnny Damon led off with a double against Mark Buehrle and moved to third on an infield single by Derek Jeter. Abreu then hit a run-scoring single to right field to give the Yankees the lead. Later in the frame, after Rodriguez had an RBI double and Jorge Posada added a sacrifice fly, Hideki Matsui lined an RBI base hit to right to make the score 5-1.

"It's pretty good for everyone to be swinging the bats," Jeter said. "We're balanced one through nine. You've got guys in the top of the lineup, the middle of the lineup, and then at the bottom that can beat you. When we're doing that, I like our chances."

Rodriguez added a run-scoring single in the seventh and a solo homer in the ninth to give him 50 RBI.

"Energy on our team has been good," Rodriguez said. "This team has been battling hard. It's a little more relaxed, and we're making teams pay for their mistakes."

The homer was his 21st, breaking a tie with Milwaukee's Prince Fielder for the most in the majors.

New York also pounded out a season-high 17 hits, and Damon thinks the team is ready for more.

"Some teams are going to start to pay for our lack of offense lately," Damon said. "This was a good night. I can see our offense taking off from here."

After Clippard departed, Scott Proctor worked two scoreless frames and Kyle Farnsworth logged the eighth. In the ninth, Brian Bruney loaded the bases with one out before Mariano Rivera came on to retire the final two batters for his sixth save in eight opportunities.

Buehrle (2-3) surrendered five runs, 11 hits and a walk to suffer his second straight loss. The lefthander failed to earn his 100th career victory for the seventh consecutive time.

"I hope (the 100th win) will happen this year," Buehrle said. "I don't want to guarantee it because then I'll go out and get hurt in my next start and won't be able to pitch again. But I'm sick of saying it's going to happen. Let's hope it does sometime this year."

The 28-year-old Buehrle is 1-5 lifetime in seven starts vs. New York.

Rob Mackowiak drove in two runs for Chicago, which has alternated wins and losses the last six games.

"We haven't had much consistency at all," Mackowiak said. "We started to come around in a couple of games and then went back in the hole. There's no explanation."