Momentum swings are never far away

"It certainly makes us feel better than it makes them feel bad," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "It's great for us. We lost a tough game in Toronto. We gave a lot away tonight. I want to say it's huge with 15-16 games left on the schedule. This is where emotion kind of takes over."

It didn't matter that Yankee bats had been absent for most of seven innings.

They had put people on base against Daisuke Matsuzaka, but failed to pull the trigger on the big inning. The logical thing to assume is once you get to the eighth and ninth innings against the Red Sox, it's pretty much over. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I don't know if Papelbon felt out of place entering this game with nobody out in the eighth and two runners on base, but the Yankees weren't fooled, awed, or impressed one bit.

What a beating.

Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano hit back-to-back lefthanded homers against lefty Okajima. And they weren't cheapies. They were struck. After a walk to Melky Cabrera, Johnny Damon stroked a double to the left-center-field gap. This was all the fun Terry Francona could stand. He came out to yank his lefty and it seemed strange that Papelbon was the guy he was going to. Eric Gagné was not up in that setup role he's supposed to assume.

"Emotion just grabbed us after the two home runs," said Torre. "Now you realize it's a three-run deficit and we have a chance if we can string something together."

The Yankees just kept on coming: an RBI single by Derek Jeter, who was 0 for 4; a two-run double to the center-field wall by Bobby Abreu; a go-ahead single by Alex Rodriguez, who earlier in this epic game was buckled on two strikeouts by Dice-K. This was a relentless barrage of hits.

It wasn't as if they whacked around Javier Lopez or Devern Hansack. They destroyed arguably the best lefty setup guy in baseball. They pounded a lights-out closer who had hurled 15 2/3 scoreless innings before the attack. What appeared to be a night in which the Red Sox would go 6 1/2 games up turned instead to a night they ended up just 4 1/2 up, four in the loss column. What's worse, the confidence the Yankees keep gaining against the Red Sox grows stronger by the day.