By HOWIE RUMBERG AP Baseball Writer
NEW YORK (AP) _ Maikel Franco homered twice among his career-high four hits, drove in five runs and made a fabulous diving play at third base Monday night, helping the Philadelphia Phillies snap a 12-game road skid with an 11-8 victory over the New York Yankees.
Franco’s fellow rookie teammate Cesar Hernandez doubled and had two RBIs and Ryan Howard had a two-run single for Philadelphia in a second straight offensive outburst against a top starter for the lowest scoring team in the major leagues. They chased Michael Pineda in the fourth inning. The Phillies beat Michael Wacha and St. Louis 9-2 Sunday.
Ben Revere and Freddy Galvis each had three hits and everyone in the Phillies’ starting lineup had at least one hit except for the struggling Chase Utley, who has lost playing time to Hernandez at second base. Philadelphia, losers of 23 of 30, had season highs for runs and hits (18).
Winners of 11 of 13 at Yankee Stadium coming in, New York was roughed up for 10 or more runs in consecutive home games for the second time this year. Texas did it May 22-23 against Pineda and CC Sabathia, Tuesday’s starter.
Brett Gardner hit a three-run homer off Kevin Corriea and had four hits _ two on bunts. He reached base five times for New York, which had 14 hits and was 4 for 13 with runners in scoring position.
Jake Diekman (2-1) walked three in two scoreless innings for the win in relief of Corriea. In his third start this year, Corriea allowed five runs in four innings.
Franco opened the scoring with a homer in the first. He singled and scored in the third, had two-run single in the fourth and connected for a long two-run drive to left in the sixth off Chris Capuano. He struck out to end the seventh with a chance to push his first multihomer game to three longballs.
Trailing 2-1 going the third, the team that scored just 22 runs in those 12 straight road losses _ their longest road losing streak since 1999 _ put their first four batters on with Howard hitting a two-run single to put the Phillies back on top and eliciting a shout from a young fan in the eerily quiet stadium, “and there are still no outs.”
They added four in the fourth after loading the bases on Galvis’ bunt that stopped right on the third base line. After a force at home, Hernandez had an RBI double and Franco drove in two more with a single that chased Pineda in one of the worst starts of his career.
In 3 1-3 innings, Pineda allowed career highs of eight runs and 11 hits _ his second poor start sandwiching an outing in which he took a no-hitter into the seventh.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Phillies: Cole Hamels is still on target to start Wednesday in the series finale. Manager Ryne Sandberg said “everything went well” for the LHP in his last bullpen session.
Yankees: Mark Teixeira was out of the starting lineup because of a stiff neck, which has been a problem for about 10 days.
UP NEXT
Phillies: Sean O’Sullivan (1-5) is coming off his best start of the year: one run and four hits in five innings against Baltimore with a season-high seven strikeouts. He is 2-2 with a 5.87 ERA against New York.
Yankees: Sabathia has held opponents to batting average of .083 (2 for 24) with runners in scoring position. Philadelphia entered Monday 28th of 30 teams with a .220 average (122 for 555) with RISP.
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