TORONTO -- Alex Rodriguez and Mike Mussina were happy to be heading home, especially after a win.\nRodriguez homered in his third straight game, and Mussina made another sharp start, leading the New York Yankees past the Toronto Blue Jays 3-1 Wednesday.\nNew York is 7-7 after playing 11 of 14 on the road. The Yankees host Baltimore Friday night in the start of a nine-game homestand.\n"We would love be 9-5 or something like that," Rodriguez said. "But we've been on the road for basically 14 days. We're very excited to get home."\nRodriguez said the road start was OK given that the Yankees traveled to Oakland, to Los Angeles to play the Angels, Minnesota and Toronto -- all possible postseason contenders.\n"There's probably eight or nine teams that are legitimate World Series contenders in the American League, and that's very unique because you probably haven't had that in over 20 years," Rodriguez said. "There is great parity in the American League. There are probably three teams in each division that can potentially win the World Series."\nRodriguez homered in the fifth, tying Juan Gonzalez for 35th place with his 434th homer. A-Rod is hitting .462 (12-for-26) in New York's wins and .148 (4-for-27) in its losses.\nHe arrived early before the game to work on his swing.\n"I'm getting more comfortable," he said.\nMussina (2-1) struck out a season-high seven in 7 1-3 innings, allowing one run and seven hits. He lowered his ERA to 2.67.\n"It was a masterpiece," New York manager Joe Torre said. "He's as good as we've seen him early in the year."\nKyle Farnsworth got the last two outs of the eighth, and Mariano Rivera, bouncing back from Saturday's loss in Minnesota, pitched a perfect ninth for his second save.\n"That's the way you draw it up," Mussina said.\nMussina knows his team is counting on him and Randy Johnson to have starts like this despite their ages. Johnson is 42 and Mussina is 37.\n"We're the old guys, and everybody keeps reminding us," Mussina said. "If the two of us can do what we've been doing for the last 16 or 18 years, then that's great."\nToronto manager John Gibbons said it was just Mussina's day.\n"When he's on, he keeps you off-balance," Gibbons said. "He picked the plate apart."\n
Reds 9, Marlins 8
\nNot even four homers and unbeaten-in-April Dontrelle Willis could get the Florida Marlins a breakthrough win.\nCincinnati tied it with three runs in the eighth, and Edwin Encarnacion hit a run-scoring double in the ninth that gave the Reds a 9-8 victory Wednesday over the NL's least-successful team.\nTodd Wellemeyer (0-1) walked Adam Dunn and gave up a one-out single in the ninth to Scott Hatteberg, his third hit. Encarnacion followed with a grounder down the third-base line to score Dunn without a play at the plate.\nWillis was on the verge of improving to 10-0 career in April when he turned an 8-4 lead over to the bullpen after the sixth inning. Once again, Florida turned it into a close one and lost it.\nFlorida is 0-5 in one-run games, the only NL team that has yet to win one. It's a big reason why the major leagues' youngest and least-expensive lineup has only four wins and has yet to win a series this season.\nTodd Coffey (1-0) pitched a perfect ninth to get the victory and let Cincinnati take two of three in the series.\nThis one slipped away from the Marlins in the eighth. Matt Herges relieved with the bases loaded and failed to field Felipe Lopez's comeback grounder, which could have resulted in a home-to-first double play. Instead, the ball kicked away to second baseman Dan Uggla, who then threw it away while trying to get Lopez at first.\nBrandon Phillips' run-scoring groundout tied it at eight and completed an unusual comeback by the Reds -- no homers in a high-scoring game.\nBy contrast, the Marlins tied their club record with four, including a three-run shot by Uggla. Miguel Cabrera, Miguel Olivo and Reggie Abercrombie added solo shots -- Abercrombie's first career homer landed 493 feet away in the upper deck in left, the third-longest in Great American Ball Park's four-season history.\nWillis came into the game 4-0 in five career starts against Cincinnati, having allowed a total of four earned runs. He gave up four more in a ragged fourth inning, when he walked two batters and let in a run with a wild pitch.\nStill, the Marlins were in good shape when he left. Or so they thought.\nTwo errors, a walk and a hit batter helped the Reds tie it with a run in the seventh and three in the eighth.\nThe Marlins entered the series with only 10 homers, third-fewest in the NL. They morphed into sluggers in Cincinnati, hitting seven homers in the last two games at a ballpark that gives them up pell-mell.\nTheir first three came off right-hander Aaron Harang, who lasted only four innings. In his last outing, Harang pitched into the eighth inning of a 1-0 win in St. Louis.\nsh: Cardinals 4, Pirates 0
PITTSBURGH -- Chris Carpenter was good enough last year to be voted the NL Cy Young Award winner. He might be pitching even better this season.\nCarpenter limited the Pirates to two hits over eight innings in his third consecutive strong start, and Jim Edmonds and David Eckstein homered in the St. Louis Cardinals' 4-0 victory over Pittsburgh on Wednesday.\nThe right-hander has been near perfect on the road the past two seasons, going 14-1 in 18 starts, and he was again in beating the Pirates for the sixth time in seven career decisions. Getting ahead in the count against nearly every hitter, he didn't allow a runner after hitting Chris Duffy with a pitch to start the first until rookie Ronny Paulino singled with one out in the sixth -- only his third career hit.\nPaulino was fooled earlier in the at-bat, bailing out on a first-pitch breaking ball that broke over the plate, only to work the count to 2-2 before a line-drive single to left\nThe Pirates, 11-32 against the Cardinals in PNC Park, didn't threaten until Freddy Sanchez singled and Jason Bay walked starting the seventh. But Carpenter got Jeromy Burnitz and Craig Wilson to fly out and struck out Mike Edwards.\nCarpenter (2-1) struck out six and walked one to lower his ERA to 1.67, and he has allowed only one earned run and 10 hits over 22 innings in his last three starts. He was coming off a 1-0 loss to the Reds' Aaron Harang on Friday.\nJason Isringhausen, shaky at times to start the season, finished the two-hitter.\nAlbert Pujols failed to homer after hitting his ninth and 10th of the season in the previous two games of the three-game series. He flied out in the first, then walked his next three times up. After he was intentionally walked in the ninth to put two on, Edmonds hit his two-run double.\nThe pitching matchup -- Carpenter vs. Victor Santos -- looked like a mismatch, with Carpenter bringing an 86-61 career record into the game to Santos' 18-35. But Santos made the best start of his four with Pittsburgh, allowing no other hits except for the two homers over six innings, striking out four and walking one.\nEdmonds returned after not starting for four games due to right shoulder inflammation and drove in three runs. He gave the Cardinals a 1-0 lead with his second homer, a drive into the right-field seats to start the second, and added a two-run double in the ninth against Roberto Hernandez.\nEckstein homered with two outs in the third, a shot down the left-field line on a full-count pitch.
