Sabathia, Jeter lift Yanks to 10th straight win

Bronx, NY – Derek Jeter knocked in three runs, CC Sabathia threw his first complete game of the season and the Yankees ran their win streak to 10 games Monday night with a 6-2 victory over the Braves.

Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano homered for the Yankees, who moved to 10-0 in their current 15-game stretch against NL East teams and 20-4 in their last 24 overall.

"It's not easy to do in this game because you play a lot of good teams during these streaks," said New York manager Joe Girardi. "There's a lot of parity in baseball and our guys have done a good job of finding ways to win games."

Sabathia (9-3) beat the Braves for the second time in a week, settling down after giving up a first-inning run to strike out 10. He gave up seven hits and a walk and threw 84 of his 116 pitches for strikes in the 34th complete game of his career.

The 31-year-old lefty beat Atlanta in his last start last Tuesday despite giving up four runs on 10 hits in seven innings. He was saved by a six-run eighth inning, which included Alex Rodriguez's 23rd career grand slam to tie Lou Gehrig's major league record.

Braves starter Mike Minor (3-5) did not give up a hit until the fifth inning, but lasted just 5 2/3 frames and took the loss after giving up four runs on four hits and three walks. He struck out seven.

The 24-year-old lefty faced Sabathia and the Yankees last Tuesday, taking a no-decision after he was pulled early in New York's six-run eighth.

"You see it a lot with a young pitcher," said Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez. "He's plenty good enough to get through that lineup. You see it in spurts, but now we have to get him to have four or five good outings in a row."

The Braves fell to 1-7 in their last eight games. They had been shut out in their last two games against Baltimore over the weekend.

The Yankees have won 10 in a row for the first time since May 7-17, 2005.

While all of those games came against either Oakland or Seattle, their 10 wins this time around have been against NL East teams, including a three-game sweep of Atlanta last week.

The Yankees entered Monday's series opener coming off consecutive three-game sweeps over the Mets, Braves and Nationals -- the first time since 1998 they swept three straight series of at least three games. After a slow start, they continued their push.

It took four pitches for the Braves to score their first run. Michael Bourn led off the game with a triple on Sabathia's second pitch and came home on Martin Prado's ground out. Bourn added an RBI single in the top of the fifth.

Meanwhile, it took more than four innings for the Yankees to get their first hit -- but once they did, the floodgates opened against Minor.

They were hitless until Rodriguez opened the fifth with a line-drive single to center to spark a three-run rally. Rodriguez moved up on a wild pitch and Cano walked before Russell Martin's ground-rule double -- it was touched by a fan on the left field side -- scored the first run.

Jayson Nix also walked and Jeter extended his hitting streak to nine games with a two-run single to center that scored Cano and Martin to make it 3-2, giving the Yankees the lead for good.

Teixeira led off the sixth inning with a homer to left, his 12th of the year, to make it a two-run game. Minor came out after getting two outs in a row and Kris Medlen got the third.

Medlen stayed on for the seventh, giving up a two-out double to Chris Stewart and an RBI single to Jeter that made it 5-2 before he was replaced by Jonny Venters.

Cano hit his 13th homer of the season to dead center field in the eighth off Anthony Varvaro.

Game Notes

The Yankees have won six straight against the Braves...Atlanta's second run came after Sabathia deflected a bouncer up the middle by Andrelton Simmons that could have otherwise been a double play...The Braves kicked off a six-game road trip against the Yankees and Red Sox.