That's the mark Pavano earned Friday night by out-dueling former teammate and recent Yankee-killer A.J. Burnett in a 2-1 win over Toronto.

Pavano pitched six strong innings, admittedly getting some help from his outfield on some hard-hit balls, but yielding one run on just three hits.

"That's two pretty good starts for Carl and that's encouraging," manager Joe Girardi said.

Less encouraging was Boston's 8-0 win over Chicago, which kept the Yankees six games back in the wild-card race.

But the Yankees offered as good an effort as they have recently with the crisp victory, scoring just enough to beat Burnett, who had defeated them three times this season.

And Pavano, who had become a running joke for so long, at least could feel good about contributing and coming back from a bona fide injury after spending the past year rehabbing from "Tommy John" elbow surgery.

YANKEES 2, BLUE JAYS 1: Carl Pavano won his second straight game, giving the Yankees six innings of one-run ball and Mariano Rivera capped a five-person relief effort with a five-out save for the Yankees' second win in a row. Bobby Abreu doubled in a run and Jason Giambi added a sacrifice fly as the Yankees scored both their runs in the fourth inning.