Hughes better but Yankees fall to Red Sox

BOSTON - The Yankees finally found Josh Beckett somewhat hittable.

No matter.

The Red Sox found plenty to like from the pitchers they saw, the case pretty much all season against the Yankees.

Though the Yankees hit Beckett, they still were pounded by the Red Sox, 9-5, dropping to 3-12 against their rivals this season.

The Yankees (81-52), who won the series opener Tuesday, fell 1 1/2 games behind the Red Sox (83-52) and will send A.J. Burnett to the mound tonight against Jon Lester to try and win the series.

Yankees fans confident in that scenario could not immediately be found.

"This is a dangerous group and we knew that," Joe Girardi said. "You look at the numbers that they have, they're dangerous. They're a lot like our offense. You make mistakes, they're going to hurt you."

David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jason Varitek capitalized on three of the biggest ones made by Yankees pitchers who, entering Tuesday's series opener, had amassed a 5.98 ERA this season against the Red Sox.

Ortiz's was a two-run shot off Phil Hughes -- who was far better than in his previous start but still allowed six runs in 5 2/3 innings and could be headed for the bullpen -- in the fifth that gave the Red Sox a 4-1 lead.

After, somewhat shockingly, the Yankees retook the lead at 5-4 with a four-run top of the sixth against Beckett, who came in 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA in four previous starts against them, Boone Logan gave up a two-run homer to Ellsbury that made it 7-5. Varitek's two-run blast in the eighth off Luis Ayala made it 9-5.

Before the game Girardi talked about the importance for the Yankees to "figure" out Beckett, a pitcher they very well might need to get past to advance to the World Series. Last night they scored five runs, four earned, off of him and had six hits. Compared to how things went against the righthander, who improved to 12-5 with a 2.54 ERA, it was an offensive eruption.

"I don't think you can necessarily say we figured him out," said Derek Jeter, who had two hits to give him 3,061 in his career, past Craig Biggio into 20th place on the all-time list. "We scored five runs but it wasn't enough."

Against the Red Sox, whose lineup has been without Kevin Youkilis, five rarely is. Hughes (4-5, 6.75) was most disappointed with not being able to hold the lead in the sixth. After Carl Crawford, whose first-inning double made him, remarkably, 12 for his last 15 against Yankees pitching, flied out, Hughes walked Josh Reddick.

Varitek then sliced an opposite-field double over the third-base bag, a ball that somehow hugged the top off the wall jetting toward the field before falling onto the ground and rolling into the leftfield corner. That allowed Reddick to come around from first to make it 5-5.

Marco Scutaro flied out and Girardi brought in Boone Logan, who escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam the night before, to face the lefthanded hitting Ellsbury. The MVP candidate jumped on Logan's 3-and-1 pitch and put it into the first row of seats atop the Green Monster in left-center for his 24th homer of the season and a 7-5 lead.

"We needed to win tonight," Hughes said. "It doesn't matter if I felt good or my stuff was good or whatever. I have to go out and find a way to get through that last inning and get us through the sixth with a lead. It didn't happen."