Two-run HRs by Teixeira, Granderson help Hughes beat Pelfrey

Jose Reyes led off yesterday's Subway Series game with a home run off Phil Hughes, and darned if Yankee Stadium didn't sound like Citi Field on its happiest day.

Mets rooters among the crowd of 49,073 were making themselves heard. They did so again when Reyes went deep a second time, this one a two-run shot in the third inning that gave the Mets a two-run lead.

Momentum seemingly was on the Mets' side after Friday's series-opening win. The Mets had won eight in a row; the Yankees had lost three straight.

But Mark Teixeira hit a tying two-run homer in the bottom of the third off Mike Pelfrey. Curtis Granderson put the Yankees ahead with a two-run shot in the fourth. Momentum had shifted.

"Homers help," Teixeira said in the afternoon's shortest and most accurate analysis.

Hughes didn't allow another run. By the time Mariano Rivera got Chris Carter to bounce to Teixeira for the final out of a 5-3 Yankees win, the Bronx had returned to a place where the pinstripes prevail - at least for one day.

"The one thing that you talk about during the season and spring training is shutdown innings," Joe Girardi said. "The importance of when you score, you don't let your opponent score. Tex answering right back, I thought, was extremely important."

The homers helped Hughes (10-1, 3.17) buckle down. Neither he nor Pelfrey had let a lead get away in 2010, but only Hughes continued that pattern. He allowed three runs, five hits and three walks in seven innings, striking out four.

Once given the lead, Hughes allowed only two singles and a walk in innings four through seven, snuffing out the Mets' only legitimate rally in the sixth on Jason Bay's inning-ending double-play ball with two men on. "He didn't have real good command of his fastball the first three innings and then it seemed to settle in a little bit more," Girardi said. "He started to use his curveball more. He's been a guy where we've watched him do this most of the year."

Pelfrey (9-2, 2.69) has been doing it most of the year for the Mets, which is why both young righthanders have an excellent chance of being All-Stars this season. But Pelfrey couldn't hold on to leads of 1-0 and 3-1, allowing the Yankees to immediately tie the score after Reyes' homers.

Pelfrey allowed five runs and seven hits in seven innings with three walks and two strikeouts.

"He elevated a few pitches," Jerry Manuel said. "You elevate off-speed pitches, especially in this ballpark, you're going to pay for it."

Reyes lined the second pitch of the game over the rightfield fence, but the Yankees tied it in the bottom of the first on singles by Brett Gardner and Nick Swisher and Teixeira's double-play ball.

Reyes hit a two-run shot into the first row in right in the third, the sixth time he has homered more than once in a game. But Teixeira slammed a tying two-run shot to right-center in the bottom of the third, his 11th of the season. "It changed this game with momentum a lot," Hughes said.

The Yankees went ahead for good in the next inning when Granderson followed a walk to Jorge Posada with his sixth home run. It was a mini-outburst for the Yankees, who had totaled four runs in the previous three games and were shut out Friday.