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Yankees use early homers to bomb Bannister, Royals

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:49 PM By Larry Fleisher PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- Big hits eluded the New York Yankees for nearly five hours on Saturday. A day later, they came early and often.

Alex Rodriguez, Xavier Nady and Jason Giambi homered as the Yankees rolled to a 15-6 rout of the Kansas City Royals on Sunday to post their first series victory in three weeks.

Mike Mussina (16-7) allowed three runs - all in the first inning - and gave up six hits over six innings for his 16th victory. He struck out five and walked none for his third consecutive victory and 266th in his career, tying Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Eppa Rixey for 34th on the all-time wins list.

"Today was about offense," said Mussina, who did not allow a hit after Esteban German's single deflected off his back in the second. "The guys went up there and worked for a pitch to hit."

Rodriguez had a season-high five RBI and Derek Jeter collected four hits and scored three times as the Yankees posted their highest output since an 18-7 win over Texas on July 2.

"It's always good," said Jeter, who recorded his fourth straight multi-hit game. "You don't see it (four hits) too often but it's a fun game for us."

Pinch hitter Cody Ransom also added a two-run home run for the Yankees in his first at-bat since being promoted on Friday.

Jose Molina and Bobby Abreu added RBI doubles and rookie Brett Gardner contributed a run-scoring triple for the Yankees, who pounded the Royals for 17 hits.

The Yankees won for just the fifth time in 13 games and scored 15 unanswered runs after the Royals took a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. They won a series for the first time since taking two of three from the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park from July 25-27

New York pulled within five games of Boston in the wild card race.

"We have to do it every day," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "That's the bottom line. We're behind and we have to make up some games and we have to put together some streaks, long streaks, win series every time if we want to play in October."

Sunday's win also came a day after the Yankees needed 4 hours, 53 minutes and 13 innings to beat the Royals, 3-2, due to their inability to hit with runners in scoring position. New York went 3-for-16 in such situations until Gardner won it with a two-out single.

"It always helps when you can score early," New York's Johnny Damon said. "Hitting with runners in scoring position, that's been our weakness all year."

Saturday's futility continued a nearly two-week trend but the Yankees broke out it in a big way Sunday They scored six runs in the first, four in the second, one in the third and four more in the seventh for their first double-digit output since a 14-9 win over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on August 3.

The Royals jumped on Mussina for three runs and four hits in the first as Billy Butler had a two-run double and Alex Gordon lifted a sacrifice fly. But after the first turn through the lineup, Mussina retired the final 14 hitters he faced.

The Yankees rocked Brian Bannister (7-12) for 10 runs and 10 hits in one-plus inning, the worst outing of Bannister's career.

"It was nice," Rodriguez said. "They got off to a three-run lead and it was important for us to answer the call and we had a real good first inning."

Rodriguez tied it with with a three-run shot over the left field wall and Nady put the Yankees ahead with a solo shot that hit the foul pole in right field.

Giambi drilled his 14th career grand slam into the right-center field bleachers in the second to make it 10-3.

"It was bad," Kansas City manager Trey Hillman said. "You get off to a three-run lead off a guy who's been very effective. We had some good swings, good plate appearances and obviously (we were) not able to do it on the mound later."