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Pettitte leads Yankees to ninth straight win

Jun 14, 2007 - 9:46 PM BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- Less than 24 hours after climbing over .500, the New York Yankees quickly showed they have no intention of looking back.

Andy Pettitte turned in eight sharp innings as the Yankees stretched their season-high winning streak to nine games with a 7-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Yankees (33-31) moved over .500 for the first time since April 20 when they were 8-7. The rapid climb comes just two weeks after they were 21-29 and 14 1/2 games behind the Boston Red Sox in the American League East.

"When you win ballgames, everything feels a little better," Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said. "Right now we are really comfortable."

"We're playing good," Pettitte added. "When you're playing like this, you want to keep it going. That's all there is to it. We're throwing the ball well. We're swinging the bats well and it's fun. It's fun right now to come to the ballpark and do this."

In the first two games of this series, Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina provided effective outings. On a cloudy afternoon, Pettitte kept the run of good starting pitching going for the Yankees, who entered the day 8 1/2 games behind the Red Sox.

Pettitte (4-4) won for the first time in four starts dating to an 8-3 win over Boston on May 23. He lost at Toronto on May 29 - the day before the turnaround began and then did not get a decision in two games the Yankees won in the late innings.

On Thursday, Pettitte ensured some late-inning drama would not be necessary. He allowed just one run and four hits, struck out three and walked one.

Pettitte threw 67 of 101 pitches for strikes. Unlike some of his other eight outings of at least 100 pitches, this one was relatively stress-free.

"He certainly has been everything we've hoped for," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "You know the quality of the person. You know what you're getting."

After allowing a leadoff single in the third, Pettitte retired 10 straight batters. He allowed a two-out single to Orlando Hudson in the sixth but retired six of the final seven hitters before Scott Proctor finished up.

"It was (stress-free) and that was good," Pettitte said. "I wasn't in a whole lot of trouble. So that makes it nice. It was a definitely a nice feeling to throw 100 pitches and not have too many problems over the course of the game."

"He's been doing it all year, it's really nothing new," Yankees captain Derek Jeter said. "If we scored runs for him early on, he'd probably have about 10 wins. But he's pretty much been dominant every time out there this year."

Similar to the previous two games, the Yankees struck early. They scored two runs in a 36-pitch first inning and two more in the third.

Nearly two weeks ago, Doug Davis (4-8) turned in 7 2/3 strong innings at Shea Stadium, but at Yankee Stadium it was a different story. Davis lasted just five innings and allowed four runs, six hits and tied a season worst by issuing five walks.

"I was just a little wild, but for the most part I executed," Davis said. "There's no way you can you defense it. They're hitting and we're not."

One of those walks led to New York's first run. The Yankees opened the game with three straight singles as Bobby Abreu's infield single which Davis was unable to field loaded the bases.

Davis then walked Alex Rodriguez to force home Melky Cabrera. After Posada struck out, Jeter scored on Hideki Matsui's groundout.

Another walk began the rally in the third. Abreu opened with a four-pitch walk and scored when Rodriguez doubled and took third on left fielder Scott Hairston's fielding error.

Rodriguez took third on Posada's groundout and scored on Matsui's double.

The Yankees added three in the seventh. Rodriguez scored on Matsui's bloop single to center field. Posada also scored when center fielder Chris Young's relay throw to third sailed over rookie third baseman Mark Reynolds' head for a two-base error and Josh Phelps' bloop single popped out of Young's glove, allowing Matsui to score.

The Diamondbacks managed just four runs in the three-game series. They have lost three in a row and six of seven following an 11-1 tear.

"Obviously, we caught this team at the wrong time," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "We didn't play well enough to win today. We didn't pitch well enough, we didn't swing the bats well enough. It ended up being a bad game for us."

Arizona's lone run came in the second when Reynolds doubled and scored on Scott Hairston's groundout.