Crisp does his share to help Red Sox win

The ball went over the right-center field wall, and Coco Crisp went with it. He didn’t do much more than tip it, but he impressed his teammates all the same in the fifth inning.

“What we saw was one of the better efforts I’ve ever seen,” said Red Sox reliever Brendan Donnelly, who was in the bullpen when Crisp toppled over the wall in pursuit of Alex Rodriguez’s second home run of the game. “He didn’t get the ball, but he made a statement to the team.

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Crisp recovered and tripled in the tying runs in the eighth, scoring the game-winner on Alex Cora’s blooper over a drawn-in infield to help the Red Sox beat the New York Yankees, 7-6, on Friday night.

Crisp, who entered the game with a .167 average, singled in the seventh and then came up against Mariano Rivera (1-2) in the eighth with two on and two in and bounced a triple down the right-field line to make it 6-6.

“I thought I was going to catch that ball,” Crisp said. “It definitely feels good to come back and put some runs up after I couldn’t take those away.”

Cora followed with his second go-ahead hit in as many days, handing Rivera his second consecutive blown save. He hadn’t pitched since yielding a game-winning, three-run homer to Oakland’s Marco Scutaro in the ninth inning last Sunday.

Hideki Okajima retired Derek Jeter on a groundout in the ninth and walked Bobby Abreu before Rodriguez lined to second. Kevin Thompson struck out to end the game.

Rodriguez, who hit his major league-leading 11th and 12th homers, has hit safely in all 15 games this season and homered in four in a row. He also leads the majors with 30 RBIs and 65 total bases.