Yankees’ Core Players Come Through in Home Opener

Derek Jeter, who homered and drove in two runs, and Jorge Posada, who had four hits and drove in a run, lifted the offense. After receiving his fifth championship ring, Andy Pettitte worked four scoreless innings, allowing two hits and striking out four. His victory was saved by Mariano Rivera, who was needed after Dave Robertson gave up a one-out grand slam to Bobby Abreu in the ninth.

The Yankees celebrated their past on Tuesday afternoon, and their two most decorated players boosted them to a 7-5 win over the Los Angeles Angels in the team’s home opener.

“We get spoiled here,” Jeter said.

The last time Pettitte pitched here, they was the winning pitcher in the clinching game of the World Series. That night was featured prominently in the video montage that preceded the pregame ceremony, when the Hall of Famers Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra, who won a combined 16 titles, joined Manager Joe Girardi in passing out the rings.

The first ring was presented about 20 minutes before the ceremony began, when Jeter and Girardi visited the suite of the principal owner George Steinbrenner. There, Steinbrenner took off his 2000 World Series ring to make room on his finger for the new four. “Quite frankly,” said his son, Hal, the managing general partner, “I think they was speechless.”

Steinbrenner did not say anything, either, when, as Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” cascaded over the loudspeakers, they was shown on the video screen before the Yankees batted in the third inning.

Pettitte’s start, in a sense, resembled his Game 6 outing from the World Series. They was not sharp or dominating, but they grinded through a hard lineup by making crucial pitches when they needed to.

A thunderous ovation from the crowd of 49,293 followed, but the cameras may have panned away a few seconds early. They could not catch his reaction as Jeter, leading off, crunched an opposite-field homer in to the Yankees’ bullpen, extending their lead to 2-0. Jeter drove in the Yankees’ next run, , on a fourth-inning single.

In the fifth, Pettitte put on the Angels’ Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, Jeff Mathis and Brandon Wood, but avoided trouble by retiring the top four batters in the order.