Yankees crush Mariners

Chien-Ming Wang pitched into the eighth inning, and Jorge Posada blasted two home runs for New York as the Yankees blitzed Seattle, 12-3, in the second leg of a critical three-game set at Yankee Stadium.

Wang (17-6) allowed just one run on five hits in 7 1/3 innings of work for the Yankees, who extended their AL Wild Card lead over Seattle to two games. The sinker ball specialist, who recorded 17 ground ball outs in the game, is now a perfect 6-0 against the Mariners in his career.

Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu also homered for New York, which amassed 20 hits in the game. Robinson Cano went 4-for-5 with a two-run double.

"It was a big game for us," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "Seattle has a good team over there but we got a good performance from Wang tonight and go the win."

Adrian Beltre hit a solo home run for the Mariners, who have dropped 10 of 11 games. Wladimir Balentien added a two-run double in his first major league at- bat.

Horacio Ramirez (8-5) surrendered four runs -- three earned -- on nine hits in 5 2/3 innings en route to the loss.

"Sometimes I try to force things instead of slowing down and just making a pitch," said Ramirez. "Good hitters, though, will hit good pitches and that is what happened today."

The Yankees took the early lead when Posada led off the second inning by lining a Ramirez fastball over the wall in left for his 17th homer of the season.

The Mariners threatened in the fifth when Wang temporarily lost the strike zone. The Taiwanese star issued back-to-back walks to Beltre and Ben Broussard before Kenji Johjima grounded a single to left. But, Hideki Matsui gunned down Beltre at the plate and Wang induced Jose Lopez to ground into a 5-4-3 twin- killing to end the threat.

The Yankees extended their lead with a three-run sixth. With one down, Rodriguez crushed his major league-leading 46th home run of the year into the upper deck in left. Posada kept things going by drawing a walk and moved up 90-feet when Matsui reached on catcher's interference. After Shelley Duncan fanned, Cano slapped an RBI single up the middle and Wilson Betemit followed with another run-scoring single off Yuniesky Betancourt's glove to make it a 4-0 game.

Seattle finally got on the board in the seventh when Wang left a fastball up in the zone and Beltre crushed it over the wall in left-center to draw the Mariners within three runs, 4-1.

New York got that run right back and much more in the home-half. First, Abreu drilled a one-out, solo homer, his 16th of the year, to right. Rodriguez followed with a single and quickly went to third on Posada's base hit. The Mariners then made a pitching change and went to Ryan Rowland-Smith but the move backfired badly. The reliever walked Matsui to load the bases and Duncan ripped a two-run single down the left-field line before Cano slapped a two-run double into the gap in right-center to give the Yankees a comfortable 9-1 edge.

John Parrish entered the game at that point and punched out Doug Mientkiewicz, but Melky Cabrera and Derek Jeter capped the seven-run frame with consecutive RBI singles.

Balentien's two-run double for Seattle off Luis Vizcaino in the eighth made it 11-3 before Posada capped the scoring in the bottom of the frame with his second homer of the game.