If Jorge Posada ever wanted to come out of retirement, now might be the time.
Derek Jeter, in the first game of his second comeback of the season, hit a home run on the first pitch he saw and Alfonso Soriano delivered a game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth in the Yankees' 6-5 win over the Rays in The Bronx yesterday — although it looked a lot like 2003. Even Hideki Matsui was honored in a pre-game ceremony.
"It was fun to be back," Jeter said.
Jeter originally returned from a twice-fractured left ankle on July 11, but didn't make it through the game before straining his right quad.
AP
IT'S AL OVER: Alfonso Soriano, in his third day back in pinstripes, is mobbed after lining the game-winning single in the ninth inning of the Yankees' 6-5 win over the Rays at the Stadium.
Yesterday went considerably better.
He swung at the first pitch he saw from Rays lefty Matt Moore and drilled it into the right-center-field seats.
"What do you expect?" Andy Pettitte said. "He just waves the magic wand. You're thinking, 'He'll probably get a hit here,' and then it's a home run. It was cool, but he does cool stuff."
The homer helped spark a three-run first inning and was the first by a Yankees right-handed hitter since June 26.
"We need contributions from a lot of people, not just [me]," said Jeter, who went largely untested at shortstop and tried to adhere to the team's wishes and not run full speed at all times to protect his leg for the next few days.
"It's not like I'm some savior coming here, and all of a sudden we're just going to start winning every day. Everybody has to contribute. Hopefully we can start a streak."
After Phil Hughes coughed up the lead on Wil Myers' three-run homer in the third, Soriano answered with a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning.
Hughes surrendered a solo shot to Myers to start the fifth, tying the game at 5-5 before Soriano came up with the biggest hit of the day.
After Brett Gardner led off the ninth with a walk against lefty Jake McGee and moved to second on a wild pitch, Jeter was walked intentionally. Robinson Cano struck out looking, bringing up Soriano.
The 37-year-old went hitless in his first eight at-bats after being traded to the Yankees on Friday, but he made it up for that with four yesterday.
His single up the middle scored Gardner from second, made a winner of Mariano Rivera (2-2) and prevented the three-game sweep as the Yankees prepare to go on an eight-game road trip that begins tomorrow against the Dodgers.
Including Rivera's perfect ninth, the bullpen threw four scoreless innings in relief of Hughes, winless in his past four outings.
"When I see Mariano pitching, Jeter hitting and me, it feels like old times," Soriano said. "But it's the present."
The Yankees would like it to stay that way. They have learned the hard way this season that good news is often followed by bad, so it was encouraging Jeter survived the game with no complaint.
"I hope he feels good and we keep him healthy and the next two months here he helps us down the stretch," Pettitte said.
Like many of the veteran Yankees, Soriano's best days are behind him, but the player Pettitte described as "one of the most exciting players I've ever played [with]" provided some much-needed righty pop yesterday.
"This was a very important game for us," Ichiro Suzuki, who had four hits, said through a translator. "It feels like a new team was born today."
dan.martin@nypost.com
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