Travis belts pinch-homer to lift Yanks

REMEMBER when Yankee fans were wondering why Brian Cashman was loading up on older castaways? Nobody seems to be complaining anymore.

In a season that has seen valuable contributions from the Yankees’ new imports, Wednesday night turned out to be Travis Hafner’s turn.

Pinch-hitting in the eighth inning for Ben Francisco, Hafner jumped on the first pitch he saw from Diamondbacks reliever David Hernandez — a 96-mph fastball — and launched a rocket into the stands in right field to provide the gamewinning run as the Yankees rallied from three runs down to grab a 4-3 win over Arizona before a crowd of 34,369 at the Stadium.

CC Sabathia (3-1) got the victory, recovering from a shaky first inning to go eight and pick up his third straight win. The victory was also the seventh in the last eight games for the surging Bombers.

“To sit for 2½ hours and then have to come out and get one atbat, that has to be tough to do,” Joe Girardi said. “Haf has the ability to make the ballpark look small. It doesn’t really matter which ballpark it is, but that’s the ability he has and that’s why we like him.”

“I’ve seen Haf when he’s locked in, so I expect him to do a lot more than he has,” Sabathia said about his longtime teammate in Cleveland.

Hafner’s philosophy as far as pinch-hitting goes?

“Just get a good pitch to hit,” said Hafner, whose fourth home run of the season was also the fourth pinch-hit blast of his career. “You don’t necessarily want to go back (to the bench) getting like one swing.”

Unless, of course, that one swing turns out to be one of the game-winning variety.

But for much of the night it looked like the last thing that was on tap for the Yankees was some late-inning thunder. Arizona starter Wade Miley seemed to be toying with the Bombers through the first six innings when all he allowed was a first-inning single to Brett Gardner, a walk to Jayson Nix in the third, a Kevin Youlkilis hit-bypitch in the fourth and Vernon Wells’ two-out double in the sixth.

But the second-year lefthander ran out of gas in the seventh when the Yankees, sitting in a 3-0 hole thanks to a two-run homer by Paul Goldschmidt in the first and a sac fly by A.J. Pollock in the fifth off Sabathia, rallied to tie the game.

It started with a one-out single by Francisco and continued with Brennan Boesch’s two-out double to left in the seventh. Eduardo Nuñez walked to load the bases and when Nix also walked, the Yankees had their first run and Miley was done. Gardner then drilled a 2-2 pitch from reliever Tony Sipp for a two-run single to knot the game at 3-3.

“At 2-2 you’re just kind of looking for a ball over the middle of the plate,” Gardner said. “He threw a fastball away and I took it to left field.”

The Yankees left runners on second and third in the inning when Wells bounced out to end the threat. But that only served to set the stage for Hafner’s first big moment in the Bronx.

“It’s very exciting,” Hafner said. “I was just happy to contribute. It’s moments like this that are very special and you’ll remember for a long time.”