• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Ramirez supports Beckett as Red Sox top Yankees

Apr 18, 2008 - 3:53 AM By Larry Fleisher PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- The Boston Red Sox have seen a lot of the New York Yankees recently, and for Manny Ramirez it was just another routine night.

Ramirez homered twice and as the Red Sox gained a split of their two-game series at Yankee Stadium with a 7-5 victory over the Yankees on Thursday.

Josh Beckett (2-1) benefited from Ramirez's big night and beat the Yankees for the second straight start. He went eight innings, allowing three runs and six hits.

The Red Sox have won three of the first five meetings in the season series and Ramirez has played a hand in those wins with three home runs and seven RBI.

All of Ramirez's home runs against the Yankees have been off Mike Mussina (1-3), who gave up a solo shot Saturday in Fenway Park and pitched to the slugger in the sixth inning, resulting in a two-run double. That resulted in second-guessing of manager Joe Girardi, who let Mussina face Ramirez with first base open.

Mussina might have been having second thoughts about his pitches to Ramirez this time.

"He just gave me good pitch to drive and I just drove it," Ramirez said. "I wasn't waiting for nothing. I was just very relaxed and waiting for my pitch."

Ramirez led off the second by hitting a 3-1 pitch over the center field fence He highlighted Boston's four-run fourth by sending Mussina's 2-2 offering into the left field seats for a 3-0 lead.

For Ramirez, it put him within five of 500 career home runs. It also was his 50th two-homer game, moving him past Mel Ott and Eddie Mathews into 10th place on the all-time list.

"He took some good swings," Boston manager Terry Francona said. "Some days you need guys in the middle (of the lineup) to do things like that and it is part of the reason that we're good. He swung at pitches he could handle and he did something with them."

A lot of that damage has been done against the Yankees and at Yankee Stadium, which is located near Washington Heights, where Ramirez starred in high school before being drafted by Cleveland in 1991. He has eight multi-home run games against New York, 55 home runs off the Yankees, 29 in Yankee Stadium and nine off Mussina.

"You make a mistake, he hits it," Mussina said. "He usually does."

"I don't know," Girardi said about Ramirez's success. "I'm not inside his head. Manny's been doing this for a while."

After Ramirez celebrated his latest two home runs, the game nearly turned heated in the seventh when Kyle Farnsworth's first pitch of the inning was a 97 mile-per-hour fastball that went behind the slugger's neck.

Plate umpire Larry Vanover warned both teams and the Red Sox did not retaliate.

"It just slipped," Farnsworth said. "I was trying to be aggressive and go in on him. It just slipped."

"I was glad it didn't hit Manny," Francona said. "A 98 (fastball) at your lips is going to hurt."

Farnsworth's pitch came a night after Alex Rodriguez homered and was plunked by David Aardsma.

"We hit one of the best players last night and I guess they're going to send a message," said Ramirez, who also added that he was not upset. "They have to back up the players and they did."

Aside from the errant pitch, it was just a continuation of what Ramirez has done against the Yankees his entire career and especially in the last two seasons.

Since the start of the 2006 season, Ramirez is hitting .500 (55-for-110) with 14 home runs and 39 RBI in 33 games against the Yankees.

Ramirez finished with three hits for the second straight night and is 12-for-24 in his last six games. He raised his batting average to .343 and has done so while David Ortiz is batting just .111.

The Yankees scored their first three runs with two outs in the sixth off Beckett. They added a pair of two-out runs in the ninth off closer Jonathan Papelbon and were within 7-5 on Melky Cabrera's solo home run.

Papelbon avoided further damage by striking out pinch hitter Hideki Matsui to end the lengthy contest, which took three hours, 20 minutes to complete.

Before the two runs in the ninth, the final 10 New York hitters were retired by Beckett, who improved to 6-3 in 10 career starts against the Yankees. His longest outing of the season also came a night after Boston gave up 15 runs and saw Clay Buchholz fail to get past the fourth.

"I felt good tonight," Beckett said. "I felt good in my last few starts."

Beckett threw 69 of his season-high 105 pitches for strikes. He struck out five and issued just one walk.

"I thought his changeup was better tonight," Francona said. "The only thing is I want to keep him around 105 pitches and that will change as he gets into the flow of the season. He's throwing the ball pretty well and he looked healthy."

Mussina was rocked for five runs and seven hits in just three innings. He threw 42 of his 77 pitches during the third and has allowed half of his 14 earned runs via home runs.

"You try to throw the best pitches when you can," Mussina said. "I couldn't throw the ball I wanted so the game plan doesn't really mean much. It just was lousy and I didn't feel great in the pen and never got comfortable."