Yanks' Don't Give Much To Back Pettitte, Lose 3-1

ARLINGTON -- With all the attention that Alex Rodriguez brought to the Yankees on Wednesday, it kinda made you forget that there was still a game to be played.

Coming off a 9th inning come from behind win on Tuesday, the Yankees looked to carry over the momentum with Andy Pettitte on the mound.

But to go along with the common theme, Pettitte pitched well, much better than he's been pitching lately, holding the Rangers to two runs in six plus innings, but took home the loss after the Yankees failed to give him anything in support.

"You don't worry about it," Pettitte said. "I'm telling you, I ain't taking the mound worrying about whether we're going to score runs or not. Our guys are grinding, and that's all you can do. Our team, this is what we have. We're going out there and battling and competing, and I love it."

Pettitte surrendered an early run to the Rangers, giving up an RBI single to AJ Pierzynski, who came up big later in the game, scoring Ian Kinsler, who single to open the bottom of the first inning.

Texas was able to get a hold of some balls, knocking hits around the yard off Pettitte, but weren't able to get anything serious going against the 41-year-old left-hander.

The only run of support Pettitte would receive on the night came in the 6th inning when Robinson Cano singled a soft liner to center, scoring Brett Gardner, who motored all the way around to third on a throwing error by Rangers' starter Matt Garza when he threw a ball up the right field line on batted ball back at him.

But for the second straight night, the Rangers used the power of the long ball to take the lead, when Pierzynski took a hold of Pettitte pitch to lift it over the right field wall. Daniel Murphy tacked on another run in the 8th, going yard off Shawn Kelley to extend the lead to 3-1.

"Pierzynski killed him -- I mean, he had both of the RBIs against him," Girardi said. "Andy usually handles lefties very well, but he left a slider ... it was down, but he left it kind of middle in. He hit it out."

Pettitte was removed from the game after giving up a pair of base hits to open the 7th. He allowed just two runs on eight hits over six plus, walking one and striking out two.

With his second strikeout, Pettitte passed Sandy Koufax on baseball's all-time strikeouts list on Wednesday, tying former Yankees pitcher Kevin Brown for 39th place.

Pettitte's counterpart, Matt Garza, was making his his first start with the Rangers since they acquired him from the Chicago Cubs on Sunday. Garza put himself into some early trouble, but settled in to yield only one unearned run on five hits, leaving to a standing ovation after 7 1/3 innings.

"He's got good stuff," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "He's got a very good fastball and a good slider. We hit some balls; we hit them at people. We had an opportunity in the first inning and weren't able to score. He kind of got on a roll after that."

Neal Cotts worked his magic against the Yankees in the 8th and 9th, facing four straight Yankee hitters and setting down four straight Yankee hitters, then Joe Nathan topped off the final out of the game to give Garza the win in his Ranger debut.

"We just weren't able to get anything going tonight," Gardner said. "That's kind of been the story for the last little while. We need a couple of guys to get hot and a couple of other guys to follow suit. Hopefully, we'll get on a roll tomorrow."

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