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BOSTON — It was old news eight months ago. But from Kenmore Square to the Back Bay, from Cambridge to Worcester, Red Sox Nation never lets anything go. Even after their beloved team ended an 86-year curse in 2004 — humiliating the hated Yankees in the process — the inferiority complex in these parts is palpable. A sense remains that the Red Sox are second fiddle to the Yankees and that something will eventually go wrong.

Friday afternoon, it was Johnny Damon's turn to administer a punch to the gut. Refusing to let Damon's business decision blow over and go away, fans booed him during introductions and before his first at-bat. In response, Damon jump-started the Yankees with a triple and a run scored.

It was in the fifth, in the middle of a 1-1 game, when the former Johnny of Nazareth said "Take that!" with a two-run home run that put the Yankees ahead for good. He'll continue to be booed here for the foreseeable future, but Damon will continue to, in his words, say hello, and oblige their one-finger salutes and chants of "You suck."

After all, Damon put his Red Sox days in the rearview mirror following the Yankees' first visit here on May 1 with a tip of the cap.

"It's been done already," Damon said. "The fans and myself have to move on. We can't continue to remember that love affair we had for four years. It was just time for me to go."

Once Damon lit a fire under the Yankees for the second time this week, it was up to the slumping Chien-Ming Wang, struggling with his control, to hold it together. Wang worked out of a first-and-third, none-out jam in the sixth, allowing only a run, and the Yankees scored four in the seventh and four more in the ninth to win 12-4 and erase the stench of Thursday's 12-2 setback. The Yankees have won nine of their last 10 following losses of at least 10 runs and stretched their AL East lead over Boston to 2 1/2 games.

In that sixth inning, the damage was limited because Damon bailed out Wang with a sliding catch in left center field, robbing Alex González of at least double.

"I think it saved some momentum for us," Damon said. "That ball drops, they score a run and guys are on first and third. And anything can happen, especially in this ballpark. That definitely was the positive of my day."

Damon finished 3-for-6 with four RBIs, one short of his season high, to boost his average to .291, and his 19 homers are one short of his career high set in 2004. Best for the Yankees, Damon is peaking at the right time, with nine hits in his last 21 at-bats. Compared to May, he's also a different player. As Joe Torre observed, Damon was less anxious his third trip up here, and has adapted to the us-against-them mentality required for September and beyond.

"He's the type of player that in these types of games, you like him on your side," Torre said.

Damon was front and center Tuesday night, belting a game-tying three-run home run in the seventh inning of an eventual 6-3 win over Baltimore, and he hit paydirt again Friday afternoon. It also helped that he enjoyed prior success against Red Sox starter Jason Johnson. Damon is now batting .341 (14-for-41) with three homers and eight RBIs against Johnson, who the Red Sox designated for assignment after the game to activate erstwhile closer Keith Foulke.

Sensing the inevitable, Red Sox fans gave Johnson polite applause when he left the game. With reality now settling in, they're grumbling that Damon is no longer here. Maybe Damon didn't have to sign with the Yankees, but he did because like any player in the bigs, he went for the money/best chance to win a ring combination.

For that, Johnny's Disciples turned on their cult hero (shirts that read, "Damon Suck$" sold as often as crab cakes and clam chowdah). In response, Damon cashed in, restoring order to a team that limped on its charter flight to Boston, displaying his true value.

"He sucks. It's about time he did something," kidded Jason Giambi, a teammate of Damon's in Oakland before he blossomed into one of the game's elite players. Giambi also revealed pushing Brian Cashman to sign Damon in 2002, when Damon was a free agent. However, Giambi said the organization wasn't sure how he'd handle playing in New York.

Damon signed with Boston, and handled pressure like fresh air. He's doing the same in his first season as a Yankee.

"That's why we were so hard pushing Cash to get him," Giambi said. "He really is dangerous. He hits his homers and drives in runs, but the thing is he drives in big runs. A lot of people forget that in big situations he comes up big a lot of times. It was big for him to get that triple to start the game for us and get us back in winning baseball mode after how bad we played yesterday."