Posada Gives Yankees Plenty to Work With

On a night when Andy Pettitte wasn’t on his game, he was fortunate that Jorge Posada was at his best.

Posada broke out of a one-for-15 slump with four hits and four runs batted in, including a go-ahead double in the seventh, and Paul O’Neill went four for four Friday night to lead the New York Yankees past the Seattle Mariners, 13-6.

Pettitte (12-6) was not sharp, surrendering a season-high 11 hits and walking four. But he repeatedly got out of trouble, stranding two runners in the first, third and fifth innings and single runners in the sixth and seventh.

“I got some big outs,” Pettitte said. “Otherwise I would have been in big trouble.”

Starting a stretch of 27 consecutive games against teams from the AL West, the Yankees had 16 hits and won for the eighth time in 11 games to move a season-high 14 games over .500.

Bernie Williams had a three-run homer and Glenallen Hill had a two-run shot for the Yankees, who broke open the game by scoring five runs off three pitchers in the seventh and getting three more runs in the eighth.

The late offensive outburst made a winner of Pettitte, whose night couldn’t have begun much worse as he allowed six of the first seven hitters to reach base as Seattle took a 3-0 lead.

Seattle tied the game 5-5 against Pettitte in the top of the seventh, but the game changed in the bottom of the inning.

O’Neill greeted reliever Arthur Rhodes with a run-scoring single, David Justice had a two-out RBI single up the middle and Hill hit Jose Mesa’s third pitchinto the right-field stands for a 10-5 lead.

Posada had a two-run single in the eighth.