Nuñez's first major-league hit is a big one

Derek Jeter took one look at rookie Eduardo Nuñez.Then the captain did some mentoring.

"I told him to cut his hair. He had that mohawk," Jeter said. "I said get rid of that and you'll be all right. And he got his hit."

It was a significant one, an opposite-field single to rightfield off Mariners starter Jason Vargas that broke a 4-4 tie in the seventh yesterday. Jeter's RBI single and Mark Teixeira's sacrifice fly gave the Yankees a 7-4 lead in what would become a 9-5 win.

After Ichiro Suzuki threw Nuñez's hit back in, the ball went to first baseman Casey Kotchman, who flipped it to Nuñez. Wearing a big smile after his first major-league hit and RBI, he kissed the ball, then gave it to coach Mick Kelleher.

"My first hit in the big leagues, my first RBI, we win the game," said Nuñez, who planned to give the ball to his mother, Victoria Mendez. "I'm so happy."

"I'm happy for him," Jeter said. "A lot of times, the first one is the toughest one to get. Not only did he get his first hit, he got it in a big situation for us."

Nuñez, called up from Triple-A Thursday after hitting .289, played third yesterday. With Alex Rodriguez now on the DL, Nuñez figures to get most of the playing time at third because the Yankees like his hitting better than Ramiro Peña's.

Waiting game

Andy Pettitte will accompany the team on the upcoming six-game trip. He figures he'll throw at some point during the week but said everyone involved will be cautious. "They really want to make sure ," he said.

Pettitte said there's no way to know if he's going to experience discomfort until he throws off a mound. "It's scary,'' he said. If there's another setback, he said, "You get to the point where you start running out of dates."

Extra bases

Boone Logan has retired 30 of the last 36 batters he's faced and 23 of his last 25 lefthanded hitters he's faced . . . David Robertson got the first two outs in the eighth but allowed two runners to reach base, and when Mariano Rivera got the third out, it ran Robertson's streak of appearances without allowing a run to 19 . . . Austin Kearns is hitting .419 (13-for-31) in his last 10 games . . . Kotchman entered the day with a .216 average and a reputation as a slick fielder. He had three hits but was charged with an error in the eighth on Curtis Granderson's hard grounder. That snapped his major-league record of consecutive errorless games by a first baseman at 274 . . . With runners on first and third in the eighth, Ichiro robbed Peña of a hit by getting a force at second, but Peña did pick up an RBI.