The crowd was buzzing by the time Pettitte whiffed two in the first, and two-strike singles by Soriano, Jeter and Giambi brought fans to their feet moments later. Williams' bases-loaded sacrifice fly made it 1-0.
Peering in at the plate between the web of his glove and bill of his cap, Pettitte used a tight slider to set a postseason career high with 10 strikeouts. He allowed four hits in seven innings, improving to 11-7 in 26 postseason starts.
Radke was on his game, too, minimizing the first-inning damage and retiring 10 in a row before Jorge Posada's double in the fourth.
The Yankees got several singles by fighting off tough pitches, but Radke remained cool and kept them in check with a baffling changeup. He fanned Giambi with two to end the fifth, bringing more loud boos from the crowd of 56,479.Torii Hunter led off the fifth with his first career postseason homer, sending a 1-1 pitch rocketing over the left-center fence. He also circled the bases Tuesday when Williams misplayed his liner to center and Soriano threw away the relay to third.
The Yankees showed their defensive flaws again - Jeter made a throwing error in the fifth and Soriano lunged awkwardly at a single by Shannon Stewart that the second baseman could have come up with. But Pettitte got Luis Rivas with runners at the corners to end the threat.
Radke hit Nick Johnson, stuck in an 0-for-22 slump, with a 1-2 pitch leading off the seventh. Juan Rivera's sacrifice moved Johnson up, and Hawkins, the winner in Game 1, entered to face Soriano.
Soriano singled sharply to left for a 2-1 lead - his throwing error was one of several defensive miscues by New York on Tuesday.
Derek Jeter followed with a chopper back to Hawkins,
who hurriedly threw high off first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz's glove for an error that left runners at second and third.Up came Giambi, who fanned against Hawkins in Game 1 and was booed loudly throughout the first two games.
But he changed that in a New York minute, grounding a hard single up the middle through a drawn-in infield for a 4-1 lead that put the fans in a frenzy.
That was all New York needed. A well-rested Rivera came out of the bullpen for his first two-inning postseason save since Game 3 of the 2001 World Series against Arizona.