Hughes delivers 8 shutout innings.

When the 1st batter of the game almost took Phil Hughes deep to start the game, things looked like it would turn into a copy of Friday night. But on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, Hughes delivered his best performance of the season, tossing 8 shutout innings in the Yankees 4-2 win over the A's.

Oakland was only able to manage 4 hits off Hughes over 8 scoreless innings, with only 2 walks and 9 strikeouts as he shutdown the Oakland lineup that leads the majors in runs scored. After retiring the last 10 hitters he faced, the ball was handed to the Yankees bullpen to close out the 9th.

"I feel like I'm kind of clicking right now with what I'm trying to do," Hughes said. "I feel like I'm executing pitches at a better rate than I did early on. As long as I can hit the glove and stay there, and maintain my velocity and strength late in the game, then I feel like I'll be pretty good."

Chrish Stewart got the start behind the plate today and is expected to catch again on Sunday. He got the Yankees on the board in the 3rd inning with a solo homerun to left field off Bartolo Colon. Lyle Overbay added to that in the 5th with a 1st pitch homerun into the 2nd deck in right field, making it 2-0 Yankees.

"It's always nice to give him some support," Overbay said. "It's good to see that he didn't change his way of pitching when we were down those last couple of days. He kept grinding and hoping we'd get him some runs."

The important Yankee runs came in the 6th inning, when it got started with a leadoff double by Robinson Cano, his 344th double as a Yankee tying him with Mickey Mantle for 8th on the all-time Yankees list. Wells used a sac-fly to move him to 3rd, then Travis Hafner blooped a single to left to score Cano and push the Yankees lead to 3-0. That's when Colon's day ended.

Colon allowed 3 runs over 5 1/3 innings, surrendering 6 hits, with 3 strikeouts and no walks. Off Oakland's bullpen in the 7th, Edurdo Nunez triple then was driven a few batter later by Brett Gradner on an infield single, extending the Yankees lead to 4-0.

"You keep extending your lead, which I think is important against this club, because they can strike quick because of the power they have in their lineup," Girardi said. "The bottom of the lineup was excellent. Just an outstanding performance by those guys."

Hughes was attacking hitter all afternoon long as he threw 85 strikes over 117 pitches and was getting ahead of hitters, throwing 21 of 26 1st pitch strikes.

"When I'm getting ahead of guys, it makes it a lot easier to do what I want to do during the course of the at-bat," said Hughes, who has a 1.93 ERA over his last four starts. "I was aggressive with my fastball again, I was able to get ahead and, for the most part, did what I wanted to do."

Shawn Kelley was gien the right to pitch the 9th inning but after giving up a leadoff single, he was pulled by Girardi to hand Mariano Rivera the ball in a non-save situation. Kelley's run scored, then Oakland scored again on an RBI fielders choice. In the end the Yankees fought off the late comeback to win 4-2.

"It's extremely important when you can get to the ninth and you have a four-run lead," Girardi said. "You feel pretty good about your chances with the guy that's been down there for so long. That's an important outing."

The win snapped Hughes' 3 game skid without a decision and lowered his ERA to 3.60 on the season, while having 18 strikeouts over his last two outings. The Yankees have now won 7 of their last 9 games and 10 of the last 13 at Yankee Stadium.

Andy Pettite will look to rebound from a dreadfull outing on Monday against the Astros as he faces off with Dan Straily in the series finale Sunday at 1:05 ET from the Bronx.

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