Nova wins 14th straight decision, 11-5

No matter how things wind up when the Yankees' pitching rotation ultimately stops spinning, it is hard to imagine Ivan Nova being left out again. He has a special skill that comes in handy for a ballclub that has eyes on October. He wins.

Nova was not great in the Yankees' 11-5 victory over the Angels at Yankee Stadium Sunday night, but he was good enough. He was good enough to extend his streak of winning decisions to 14 games, the longest currently in the major leagues and tied for second longest by a Yankee since 1960.

He was not always sharp, but he did have eight strikeouts. He was lucky that a few hard-hit balls were caught, and fortunate that the Angels had Torii Hunter in the lineup (three strikeouts against Nova by the fifth inning). But he was solid enough when he had to be. He allowed the Yankees to fully celebrate Jackie Robinson Day, when everyone in the big leagues wore Robinson's retired No. 42.

Sure, he did have a lot of help. Derek Jeter, who has developed a close relationship with Robinson's family and who took part in a pregame ceremony that included the Hall of Famer's widow and daughter, hit a double and a three-run homer. Raul Ibañez hit a mammoth two-run homer to rightfield and an RBI single. Mark Teixeira had two hits. Robinson Cano, named for Jackie Robinson and also included in the ceremony, reached base four times, including a single and double.

David Robertson came in to snuff out trouble caused by Rafael Soriano in the seventh (retiring dangerous Mark Trumbo, the potential go-ahead run, on a bases-loaded fly to right).

And the statistics were not extraordinary: Nova allowed four runs and eight hits in six innings. He gave up emphatic home runs to Trumbo and Chris Iannetta. But the fact is, Nova (2-0) has a way of producing the one statistic that really counts, a "W.''

For him Sunday night, the "W'' stood for wheezing. He barely slept Saturday night because of the fever and cold that is going around the clubhouse. He said that as the game went along, "I lost my power."

Still, he again showed the ability to focus on opposing batters despite the temptation to look over his shoulder. His start occurred about seven hours after Andy Pettitte pitched four scoreless minor-league innings in Tampa on his way back from retirement. Pettitte's impending return has turned the near future into a nonstop tryout for Nova, Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia.

Surely, Nova has pitched the best of the three, but he knows there are no guarantees. He was 8-4 last July 4, having won four decisions in a row on his way to a stellar 16-4 season, when he was optioned to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to make room for Hughes.

To his credit, he was unfazed then and has remained the same way this year. He surely outpitched Angels starter Jerome Williams, who left in the third with a 5-1 deficit. Nova didn't buckle when he was in trouble. "I just put it in my mind, nobody is going to score right now," he said.

"It was something he had to learn," Joe Girardi said. "His first year, he'd get that lead and he'd get to the fifth inning and sometimes it would get out of hand a little bit. But I've talked about his ability to control innings. That is, to me, the maturation. He is able to relax, turn the page, make a pitch and get out of an inning. That's why he's been successful."

Nova doesn't know how successful he is (only two behind Roger Clemens' streak of 16 straight winning decisions). "I don't pay attention to that. I don't know how many I've got in a row," he said. "I just want to go out there every five days and pitch my game."