Pettitte outduels Santana

Andy Pettitte turned in his fourth straight excellent start, battling the weather and Johan Santana en route to the Yankees' 3-2 victory over the Mets.

Pettitte gave up two runs (two home runs), five hits and three walks over six innings, but the offense made that stand up against Santana. The Mets right-hander struck out eight, walked four and gave up three earned runs over six innings. Last night, both teams scored 15 runs. Today, they only combined for 11 hits and five runs.

Pettitte came back after a rain delay in the middle of the sixth inning and allowed a leadoff home run to David Wright, before closing out the inning. He was then done after 88 pitches.

In his last four starts, he is 4-0 with a 1.00 ERA in 27 innings. This was after allowing 10 earned runs to Kansas City on June 7.

After Pettitte left, Jose Veras, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless inning each. Veras was the only one to allow a hit (one) and none of them walked a batter. Rivera recorded his 22nd save of the season in the process.

Farnsworth is never a given - and he gave up a hard-hit line drive to left that was snared by Johnny Damon - but he pitched pretty well today. His pitch to strike out Carlos Beltran to end the eighth inning was quite possibly the best pitch he's thrown all season.

Robinson Cano went 2-for-4 with an RBI to raise his average to .244. Derek Jeter's 15-game hitting streak was snapped with his 0-4 afternoon. However, he scored one of the Yankees' three runs with a walk in the fourth inning.

Darrell Rasner takes the hill tomorrow afternoon as the Yankees look to sweep the Mets in their stadium. Oliver Perez will counter.

(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)