Mike Mussina, delivering a pitch in the first inning, tossed six scoreless innings and notched his 11th win of the season in the Yankees’ 2-1 victory over the Red Sox yesterday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

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AP / Julie Jacobson

NEW YORK — The Red Sox created an almost perfect situation in the top of the ninth inning yesterday afternoon, but the Yankees had one of the best all-time closers on the mound to stop it.

Trailing by two runs, Boston’s J.D. Drew led off the inning with a single off New York’s Mariano Rivera. The veteran right-hander then hit Manny Ramirez to put two runners on before Mike Lowell gave the Sox their first and, what would be, their only run of the game with an RBI-single. Kevin Youkilis then was issued a free pass when he was hit by a pitch.

Bases loaded. No outs. Down by one run with momentum clearly in the Sox’ favor.

But the Red Sox couldn’t come up with the big hit as Rivera struck out Coco Crisp, got Jason Varitek to pop up to first, and ended the threat by striking out Julio Lugo.

Game over. The Yankees win, 2-1.

“We gave ourselves a great chance with really good at-bats,” said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. “Then Mariano went to work and pretty much carved us up for three hitters. He left himself no wiggle room and then didn’t need it. We’ve seen him have clean innings. We’ve seen him get himself into a little bit of trouble, but he’s good enough to get out of it. And, we’re probably one of the few teams to actually come back and beat him. We weren’t able to do that today.”

On this current three-city road trip, the Red Sox have produced 13 bases-loaded situations. However, Boston is 1-for-11 with only three runs scored, including a sacrifice fly. In fact, the Sox are 0-for-their-last-9 with the bases juiced.

Overall, they are 1-for-19 with one walk, four sacrifice flies, and eight strikeouts and have grounded into two double plays in their last 24 bases-loaded situations. Not pretty.

“Bases loaded with no outs — you’ve got to get one of them,” said Lowell.

Rivera earned his 23rd save of the season and Yankees starter Mike Mussina improved to 11-6 with six scoreless innings in which he allowed only four hits with one walk and five strikeouts.

For Boston, rookie right-hander Justin Masterson made his ninth start of the season and his first against the Yankees. He threw six innings, allowing two runs on six hits with two walks and two strikeouts, as his record drops to 4-3.

“He did good,” said Francona of Masterson. “He pitched himself into a little bit of trouble early in the game, and then pitched himself right out of it against the middle of their order. … He pitched great. He kept his composure, which he always does. He handled himself really well.”

Even though the Red Sox failed to get some needed timely hitting, especially in the ninth inning, Boston’s defense gave its offense plenty of opportunities to stay in the game.

The Yankees, already leading, 1-0, loaded the bases against Masterson in the third inning. With one out, the Yanks’ Wilson Betemit scorched a hard grounder to the right side, which second baseman Dustin Pedroia made a tremendous play on to end the threat and the inning, saving two runs.

“That was a bullet,” said Francona referring to the play Pedroia made. “We were at a point a couple of times in the game where if Justin makes a mistake or ‘Petey’ doesn’t make that play, we’re looking at multiple runs. We gave ourselves a chance and it didn’t work out very well in the end. But at least we had a chance. When we get bases loaded with nobody out, I think more often than not, we’re still playing. We just didn’t do it, but because of [the defense] earlier we had a chance.”

In the fifth inning, the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez stood 90 feet from home with two outs when Jason Giambi ripped a liner down the first-base line that was snared by Youkilis to end the inning.

The always upbeat Masterson wished he and the Red Sox had a better outcome yesterday, but he was thrilled just to be a part of all the drama at Yankee Stadium.

“It was a really good game to watch,” he said. “There was a lot of energy and a lot of fun. There was great defense and decent pitching. At the end there was almost a good little comeback, which would have been really cool if we were able to do it. It was just a good game at Yankee Stadium.” Yankees

2

Red Sox

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jmcdonal@projo.com