Rangers 8 Yankees 6 ARLINGTON – The Yankee pitching injuries are traveling from the back of the left leg to the front.

One night after Roger Clemens was forced to the sidelineby a strained left hamstring, Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez was bothered by a problem with his left quadriceps muscle.

While El Duque was able to give the Yankees six innings compared to Clemens’ two, longer didn’t mean better because unlike the night before, the Yankees inhaled an 8-6 defeat by the Rangers in front of 33,038 at The Ballpark.

“I am really worried right now,” El Duque admitted after giving up three runs and seven hits and not figuring in the decision. “It has hurt before, but tonight was the worst.”

According to El Duque, the injury is an old one that has been relatively quiet. However, the pain has been there during his last two outings.

Since the left leg is the one El Duque propels high in his delivery, he was asked if the injury bothers his kick.

“The leg kick doesn’t bother him, it’s when he follows through,” first base coach/interpreter Jose Cardenal explained.

Despite struggling with his location, El Duque performed well enough to give the Yankees a chance at victory and left with a 4-3 lead to start the seventh.

Yet, by the time the Rangers were done with Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson, they had scored five runs to take an 8-4 lead.

Stanton, who started the inning, gave up three straight singles to Lee Stevens, Royce Clayton and pinch-hitter Roberto Kelly that produced one run and reduced the Yankees’ lead to 4-2. Stanton got Mark McLemore to ground out with the infield in before he fell behind Rusty Greer, 3-0, and issued the fourth ball intentionally.

“The 1-0 pitch was a curve ball that I thought was a strike, but it was borderline,” said Stanton, who was the loser and fell to 1-2. “After that, Zim at 3-0 decided to go after Juan [Gonzalez]. That’s his decision. I have nothing to say about that.”

Zimmer decided to summon Nelson to face Gonzalez with the bases juiced.

“When it got to 3-0, our best chance was to walk [Greer] and bring in Nelson who may get a strikeout or a double play with the big guy,” Zimmer said. “I know he knocks in 150 [runs] a year, but I took a chance.”

What Zimmer didn’t figure on was Nelson falling behind Gonzalez, who was 7-for-19 (.368) against the slider specialist. But there was Nelson in a 2-1 hole.

“It was a tough situation because I would rather pitch to him than get behind him and pitch to [Rafael] Palmeiro,” explained Nelson. “When I was behind, 2-1, I needed to make a good pitch. It should have been a little more inside. I was hoping for a ground ball but I got it up a bit.”

Gonzalez hit it into left field for a two-run single and Todd Zeile took a pitch the other way for a two-run double to finish off the nightmare inning.

The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the 13-6 Yankees who received two homers from Tino Martinez and a two-run bomb from Jorge Posada that reached the second level of seats in the right-field pavilion. It was only the 35th time a homer has landed in that area at The Ballpark, which opened in 1994.

Paul O’Neill continued to fight his way out of a slump with two hits but Bernie Williams went 0-for-4 and extended his slump to 0-for-9.

While El Duque admitted concern, he doesn’t anticipate missing his next start which is Monday in Kansas City. Of course, if a pitcher is able to breathe he wouldn’t want to miss the putrid Royals.

“He says he won’t miss a turn, that he will get a lot of ice treatments,” Cardenal said.