White Sox 4 – Yankees 3

CHICAGO – Thanks to a lack of support from the Yankee bats, one bad inning cost Mike Mussina last night against the White Sox.

Wanting to enter a three-game series versus the Red Sox with three straight victories, the Yankees seemingly packed their bats away before taking U.S. Cellular Field where they dropped a 4-3 decision in front of 34,030.

Mussina (1-4) battled through eight innings, giving up four runs, but just one – Joe Crede’s second home run in the sixth – after surrendering three in the first. However, Scott Schoeneweis, Cliff Politte and Damaso Marte limited what was supposed to be The Best Lineup Ever Assembled to five hits.

The left-handed Schoeneweis (2-0) allowed three runs and four hits in 6 2/3 innings.

The loss lowered the Yankees’ record to 8-8 and reinforced their inconsistency at the plate.

Travis Lee killed the Yankees’ last chance in the ninth when he hit into a game-ending double play with runners on first and third and one out.

Blanked in the first two frames by Schoeneweis, the Yankees scored twice in the third but then went scoreless until the seventh when they cut the Chicago lead to 4-3. Jorge Posada opened with a double, moved to third on Ruben Sierra’s grounder to short and scored when Hideki Matsui grounded to first. Schoeneweis walked Tony Clark, then hit Miguel Cairo. With Derek Jeter up, manager Ozzie Guillen countered with Politte, a hard-throwing righty, who retired Jeter on a grounder to second.

The Yankees failed to do anything with Alex Rodriguez’s one-out infield single in the eighth off Politte because Gary Sheffield ended the inning by banging into a 6-4-3 double play.

After putting the Yankees in a 3-0 hole in the first, Mussina blanked the White Sox for the next 4 2/3 innings before Crede stopped the streak with a two-out, solo homer to left in the sixth.

The Yankees scored twice in the third to cut the deficit to 3-2 on Miguel Cairo’s RBI double and a groundout from Jeter that plated Clark.