WHAT IT MEANS: For one afternoon at least, the Dead Sox showed some life.

Boston beat the Yanks, 4-1, on Saturday to even up their weekend series in the Bronx.

The series finale is Sunday night, pitting Hiroki Kuroda and Josh Beckett.

Saturday's win didn't do much to change the landscape in the AL East.

The Yankees have a 12.5-game lead on Boston with 42 games to go. They are also 5.5 games up on second-place Tampa in the division race.

OH PEDRO! Pedro Ciriaco, Yankee killer? Ciriaco continued his demolition of Yankees pitching on Saturday.

He went 4-for-4 with a run scored in Boston's win. On the season, Ciriaco is batting .517 (15-29) against the Yankees. Ouch. Adrian Gonzalez also did some damage on Saturday, hitting a two-run homer in the first inning.

SWISH! On a positive note for the Yankees, Nick Swisher's hot home stand continued. On Friday, he went 2-for-3 with two homers. On Saturday afternoon, Swisher went 3-for-4. On the home stand, Swisher is 10-for-24 with four homers and 11 RBIs ... On the other hand, it wasn't a great day for Robinson Cano. The second basemen went 0-for-4 and hit into an inning-ending double play in the eighth.

PHELPS FINE: In his first career start against Boston, David Phelps pitched fairly well.

Phelps allowed three runs on seven hits in 6 2/3 innings.

Outside of allowing a two-run homer in the first inning, Phelps was fine. He got into a bit of trouble in the fifth. Ciriaco, the Yankee killer, singled with one out. Nick Punto followed with an RBI double that turned into a triple when Andruw Jones bobbled the ball in the right-field corner.

Had Jones come up with the ball cleanly and fired home, maybe Ciriaco doesn't score there.

WHAT'S NEXT: Game 3 of this three-game series is Sunday at 8:05 p.m. Hiroki Kuroda (11-8, 3.06 ERA) faces Josh Beckett (5-10, 5.19 ERA).