Yankees sting King Felix; Hughes smooth

SEATTLE -- It had become fairly routine the better part of the last three seasons.

Felix Hernandez takes the mound against the Yankees, few runs follow.

And though the defending American League Cy Young Award winner hasn't been as good this season, there was no reason to think it would be different Monday night.

It was, with not all the damage in the Yankees' 9-3 victory over the Mariners at Safeco Field inflicted by the expected.

Sure, there was a home run from Mark Teixeira, his 37th, and an RBI from Derek Jeter. But there was also a two-run home run by Curtis Dickerson, typically a late-inning defensive sub when he's been up from the minors, and a pair of hits, including a run-scoring double, from Brett Gardner, who came in with limited success against Hernandez.

Of course, that could be said of the Yankees collectively.

Entering the game, Hernandez was 5-0 with a 1.29 ERA in his previous six starts against them, dating to Sept. 18, 2009.

But the Yankees pounded the righthander for six runs and nine hits in six innings Monday night and increased their lead over the idle Red Sox in the AL East to four games.

"It was nice to finally get a win against him," Joe Girardi said.

"You never expect to get that many runs off him," said Phil Hughes, who allowed one run and five hits in six innings. "You're usually expecting a dogfight, maybe one or two runs. But fortunately, he wasn't on it tonight and we scored some runs and that was nice to work with."

The swing inning was the fourth, a five-run frame that gave Hughes, pitching to batterymate Austin Romine, getting his first major-league start, a 6-1 lead.

For Hughes (5-5, 6.00), it was a second straight good start after back-to-back poor ones as he kept himself in the discussion for an ALDS start.

"I can't change what's already happened but from this point on, I can try and pitch well enough to have a job when the playoffs come around," Hughes said.

Teixeira, one of the few Yankees with decent numbers against Hernandez coming in (15-for-50, including four homers) led off the fourth by driving an 0-and-1 pitch deep into the seats in right-center, breaking a 1-1 tie. Robinson Cano, also with good career numbers against King Felix (9-for-28), lined a double into the corner in rightfield. (Cano later had a three-run double, after fouling off five straight pitches in a 10-pitch at-bat, in the seventh off righthander Dan Cortes that made it 9-1.)

Nick Swisher, getting the start at first base after missing the previous three games with tendinitis in his left elbow, then singled to left, putting runners at the corners. After Eric Chavez's sacrifice fly to deep center brought in Cano to make it 3-1, Gardner, 3-for-14 entering the game against Hernandez, had his second hit of the night, a double down the leftfield line that brought in Swisher to make it 4-1. Dickerson, who singled in the first -- his first at-bat since Sept. 1 in Boston -- came next and jumped on Hernandez's first pitch, sending it over the rightfield wall for his first home run as a Yankee, a two-run shot that made it 6-1.

"I told someone today, the last live pitch I saw was like two weeks ago, so, especially with him [Hernandez] on the mound, you just have to jump on fastballs," said Dickerson, who jammed his right thumb stealing second after his third-inning single. "That's what I was able to do."

The six runs in four innings were one shy of the seven they had scored in the previous 49 innings against Hernandez.

Hughes nearly gave some of that back in the sixth as the Mariners (61-86) loaded the bases with one out, but he got out of it, getting Miguel Olivo to pop out and Trayvon Robinson to fly out to deep center, where Curtis Granderson made a good play drifting back.

"Really big," Girardi said of the shutdown inning. "You don't want to give them any life. I thought that was really big on Hughsie's part."

Hughes and Girardi both raved about the job done by Romine, who as of Saturday afternoon thought his season was over. But injuries to Russell Martin and Francisco Cervelli necessitated the 22-year-old being brought to Anaheim, where he came in late as a sub for Jesus Montero. Monday night, Romine got the start and even picked up his first big-league hit, an opposite-field single in the seventh.

"It was everything I thought it would be," said Romine, who spent most of the season at Double-A Trenton before catching the final four games for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre when Montero was called up Sept. 1. "It was fun, it was hectic. It was just really fun out there . . . It really hasn't processed and I kinda don't want it to because it keeps me going on all that energy. But I'm sure it will probably sink in tonight. I've been running on adrenaline. It's been fun."

Scott Proctor pitched a scoreless seventh and got the first two outs of the eighth before allowing Olivo's two-run homer that made it 9-3.