GAME 54

YANKEES 4, RED SOX 1

When you lose five straight games, your ace has not pitched up to his own high standards and you are facing your top rival and the first-place team in your division it is time for what the baseball pundits like to term it, “a statement game.” Well, CC Sabathia certainly made a very loud statement in the Bronx on Friday.

Sabathia (5-4), harnessing the command he had been lacking and displaying the confidence that seemed to have been shaken, struck out 10 batters and pitched into the eighth inning as New York welcomed back two of its many wounded warriors to the lineup in time to end a five-game skid by downing Boston in front of a paid crowd of 45,141 in Yankee Stadium.

Sabathia allowed six hits and did not walk a batter as he shut down the Red Sox until they scored a run in the seventh on a leadoff double by Dustin Pedroia and a one-out RBI double off the bat of Mike Napoli.

For Sabathia it was his first victory since he defeated the Toronto Blue Jays on April 27, a span of five starts. Sabathia has never failed to win a game over any stretch of six starts in his career.

Meanwhile, Kevin Youkilis returned as the team’s designated hitter after being sidelined with a lumbar spine strain since April 27 and Mark Teixeira started at first base for his first game of the season after he suffered a partially torn sheath in his right wrist in March.

Both contributed to the victory.

Teixeira drew a leadoff walk from Red Sox left-hander Jon Lester (6-2) in the second inning and scored the game’s first run when Vernon Wells followed with a double off the center-field wall and Jayson Nix drove in Teixeira with a single to left. Ichiro Suzuki followed with a two-run RBI single to score Wells to give Sabathia and the Yankees a 2-0 lead they would maintain the rest of the evening.

Youkilis got back into the swing of things by delivering a two-out RBI single in the fifth to score Suzuki.

The Yankees added a run in the bottom of the seventh when Suzuki and Chris Stewart reached on back-to-back singles that ended Lester’s evening. Red Sox manager Jon Farrell brought in left-hander Andrew Miller to face Brett Gardner and he greeted Miller with a single to left that scored Suzuki to restore the Yankees’ lead to three runs at 4-1.

Lester surrendered four runs on six hits and four walks while he struck out five in 6 1/3 innings on a evening in which he struggled mightily with his control.

David Robertson pitched a perfect two-thirds of an inning and Mariano Rivera, fresh off blowing his first save of the season on Tuesday at Citi Field to the New York Mets, gave up consecutive one-out singles to Pedroia and David Ortiz before striking out Napoli and retiring Stephen Drew on an easy roller back to Rivera to earn his 19th save of the season.

The victory was an important one, not only because it erased the team’s embarrassing five-game losing streak, but it also brought the Yankees to within a game of the first-place Red Sox the American League East. The Yankees are now 31-23 and the Bosox are 33-23.

PINSTRIPE POSITIVES

• A team feeds off the energy of its ace and Sabathia finally looked the part on Friday. Though Sabathia credited improved command and aggressiveness, he also was throwing his fastball in the 92-94 mile-per-hour range for most of the night. This was Sabathia’s 17th game with at least 10 strikeouts with the Yankees but it also was his first such game without issuing a walk. It looks like the Yankees have their ace back.
• Suzuki started in right-field against the left-handed Lester because he has hit him well throughout his career and it paid off on Friday. Suzuki was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI. Very quietly Suzuki is starting to pick it up with the bat. In 10 of his past 11 starts, Suzuki has contributed at least one hit. He is 16-for-40 (.400) over that span but has no home runs and has driven in only the one run he collected on Friday.
• Gardner extended his hitting streak to eight games with his RBI single in the seventh inning. In the past eight games, Gardner is 10-for-32 (.313) with two home runs and five RBIs.

NAGGING NEGATIVES

• The only real negative of the evening was some subpar base-running. Gardner was thrown out attempting to steal by catcher David Ross on a strike-’em-out-throw-’em-out double play after Robinson Cano struck out. Gardner has been caught stealing five times in 14 attempts, which gives him a lackluster 64 percent success rate for the season.
• Stewart had a major brain cramp in fifth inning. He was on first base with two out when Youkilis singled to left to score Suzuki. With Cano coming up to the plate and Stewart safely on second, Stewart somehow decided to try for third and left-fielder Daniel Nava threw him out at third base by about three feet to end the inning. That was just plain stupid.
• After collecting at least one hit in 10 of his first 11 starts, David Adams was 0-for-2 on Friday and he has no hits in his past four games. He is hitless in his past 13 at-bats lowering his batting average to .241. It appears opposing pitchers have decided to feed him a steady diet of breaking balls and any fastball they do throw is being placed out of the strike zone.

BOMBER BANTER

Manager Joe Girardi was ejected from the game in the fifth inning by second-base umpire Vic Carapazza after Girardi disputed that Drew was able to keep his left foot on the base to retire Adams after a wide throw from Lester on a ground ball off the bat of Suzuki. It was the first time Girardi or any member of the Yankees has been ejected from a game all season. Replays of the play indicated Carapazza got the call right. Girardi told reporters that he was just requesting Carapazza ask for help on the play and the umpire refused.  . . .  When the Yankees activated Youkilis from the 15-day disabled list and Teixeira from the 60-day DL on Friday they elected to send right-hander Ivan Nova and left-hander Vidal Nuno to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Nuno, 25, was 1-2 with a 2.25 ERA in five games (three starts). Nova, 26, is 2-1 with a 5.16 ERA in six games (four starts). The Yankees said Nova is being sent down to allow him start at Triple-A and be ready to start for the Yankees if they need him. Nova admitted he was uncomfortable pitching out of the bullpen after he lost his rotation spot to David Phelps.

ON DECK

The best rivalry in sports continues with the second game on Saturday.

Phil Hughes (2-3, 4.97 ERA) will get the start for the Yankees. The 26-year-old right-hander has yielded only three runs in the 13 innings over his past two starts against the Baltimore Orioles and the Mets. Hughes was 3-1 with a 2.03 ERA last season against the Red Sox.

Hughes will be opposed by left-hander Felix Doubront (3-2, 5.29 ERA). Doubront gave up two runs on five hits and two walks while he struck out eight in six innings in a no-decision against the Cleveland Indians on Sunday. He was 1-1 with a 2.73 ERA against the Yankees last season.

Game-time will be 7:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be telecast nationally by FOX Sports.