Rockies' Jimenez outpitches Burnett

Despite the 2-7 record and 4.68 ERA that Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez brought to the mound Friday night at Yankee Stadium, Yankees manager Joe Girardi worried that the numbers didn't tell the whole story. He recalled that Jimenez was the National League starter in last year's All-Star Game and possesses an impressive array of weapons.

"Jimenez is a guy that's got velocity; he's got sink; he's got off-speed stuff, curveball, slider, split, changeup,'' Girardi said. "You better have a lot of fingers if you're going to catch him. He mixes his pitches. To me, the thing is you have to be patient and make him get the ball up. If you start chasing his off-speed down and his sinker down, you could be in for a long night.''

Girardi was right to worry. Jimenez held the Yankees to four hits and two runs in seven innings, striking out seven, and that was the key to the Rockies' 4-2 victory.

The interleague game gave former Yankees star Jason Giambi a chance to fill the DH role again at the Stadium, and he delivered a long homer that tied the score at 1 in the second inning and drew appreciative applause from the fans. Giambi wound up with three hits, a walk and two runs scored.

After being given a 1-0 lead when Curtis Granderson scored on Alex Rodriguez's double in the first, A.J. Burnett (7-6) struggled with his command.

Ultimately, it was the walks that killed Burnett. Two of his five walks turned into runs in the third and fourth innings, when he was fortunate to escape with minimal damage after loading the bases in both innings. The Rockies left 11 runners on base and went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

Then Burnett got a 92-mph fastball up to Troy Tulowitzki in the fifth, and the Rockies' cleanup hitter banged an opposite-field shot into the rightfield stands for his 14th homer and a 4-2 lead.

"Walks hurt us tonight,'' Burnett said. "Being as erratic as I was took us out of the game . . . I guess the positive is that I made the adjustment, but it was a little too late.''

Burnett was referring to the sixth inning, when he accomplished a first in Yankees history by striking out four batters in one inning.

After Burnett got Chris Ianetta and Carlos Gonzalez looking, Chris Nelson struck out swinging but reached first on Burnett's wild pitch. Burnett then got Todd Helton swinging to end the inning. The oddity may have been a Yankees first, but it was the second time for Burnett, who previously struck out four Mets in an inning.

When Burnett gave way to reliever Boone Logan with one out in the seventh, his reaction to Girardi's hook made it clear he was upset.

"I'll work on that,'' Burnett said of his fit of pique. "It's never personal. That man takes care of us better than a lot of managers do. It was a matter of never wanting to come out.''

Like Burnett, Jimenez was wild early, walking Granderson and Mark Teixeira in the first before Rodriguez's one-out double. Teixeira might have scored behind Granderson, but he held up at third when Rob Thomson first flashed the stop sign before changing his mind and waving him home. On the next pitch, Robinson Cano hit a hard liner to second baseman Nelson, who doubled off Rodriguez.

Jimenez only got stronger from that point. "With a big horse like him, you have to get to him early,'' said Rodriguez, who drove in the Yankees' other run with a sacrifice fly in the third. "He was very impressive. He threw a lot of off-speed pitches. He had our lefties kind of dancing with the split, and he mixed in enough fastballs up to 96 [mph] to keep them off."

The Yankees managed five long fly balls and a single by Nick Swisher in the final two innings but couldn't score against Matt Reynolds and Huston Street, who earned his 23rd save.