ARLINGTON -- Mike Mussina had little trouble handling the Rangers at Ameriquest Field in Arlington on Friday night, but the Yankees' bullpen certainly did.

Mussina handed a seven-run lead over to his relievers in the eighth inning, but it took a four-out save by Mariano Rivera to close out the Yankees' 8-7 win over the Rangers in the opener of a three-game series.

"I felt pretty good at 8-1," Mussina said. "Three hits, no walks, I felt pretty good at that point. About 20 minutes later, I didn't feel so good."

Mussina limited the red-hot Rangers to one run over the first seven innings, but Texas rallied for six runs in the eighth to pull within a run of New York. The Rangers loaded the bases with two outs, but Rivera retired Rod Barajas to hold the lead.

"I would have hated to see that win slip away from Moose," Aaron Small said. "That would have been really hard to take."

Alex Rodriguez, dropped from fourth to fifth in the lineup for the first time this season, drove in three runs against his former team. Derek Jeter chipped in with a pair of RBIs.

The win was the fifth in six games for the Yankees, who ended the Rangers' six-game winning streak. The teams play two more games this weekend in Arlington.

"We threw strikes and they got hits," said manager Joe Torre. "It was one of those situations where you're glad you had a seven-run lead."

The Yankees plated a pair of runs against starter Vicente Padilla in the first, then added five more in the fourth, taking a commanding 7-1 lead. Rodriguez's two-run single capped the big inning, sending Padilla to the showers after just 3 2/3 innings.

Mussina, who allowed a run in the third, was content to sit in the dugout and watch his offense go to work. The right-hander allowed just one hit from the fourth through the seventh, changing speeds and keeping hitters off balance with his arsenal of pitches.

"I tried to keep the ball in the park, just pitch the same game I've been pitching to this point," said Mussina, who improved to 5-1. "Change speeds, move the ball around and get ahead of hitters; I felt good today and was able to do most of those things."

"He was remarkable," Torre said. "His pitch count was great, he threw a lot of strikes and got a lot of first-pitch outs."

Mussina allowed a single to start the eighth, prompting Torre to bring in Small from the bullpen. Small faced four hitters, giving up three hits, so the Yankees turned to Kyle Farnsworth.

Farnsworth allowed a hit to load the bases, then got a huge strikeout of Mark Teixeira for the second out. But Farnsworth walked Phil Nevin to force home a run, slicing the lead to 8-4.

"You have to go after hitters there," Farnsworth said. "You can't be walking guys in that situation. I have to be a little more aggressive."

"It's like a snowball," A-Rod said. "It reminded me of two things: how much these guys can hit and how well Mussina pitched. You just want to stop it."

Torre, making the Yankees' fifth visit to the mound in the inning, called on Rivera to put out the fire with the bases loaded.

"I trust Mo so much, it's ridiculous," Torre said. "He's our best. When he needs to make a pitch, he has the emotion to do it."

Rivera didn't make it easy, though. Hank Blalock singled in two runs and Kevin Mench singled in another, bringing the Rangers within a run. Rivera then hit Brad Wilkerson, loading the bases yet again.

"You want somebody to come in and throw strikes," Torre said. "We just didn't count on them hitting every one of them."

Torre made his fourth visit to the mound -- the team's sixth of the inning -- to deliver a simple message to his closer.

"'We've had enough fun; let's get them out,' " Torre told Rivera. "It was a very helpless situation, because I wasn't going to make any changes."

Rivera got Barajas to ground out to second, where Robinson Cano made a nice grab and stepped on second for the final out, holding the 8-7 lead. Rivera went on to throw a scoreless ninth, getting some defensive help from Jeter to earn his sixth save of the season.

"With this game, you never know," Rivera said. "You have to be ready for any situation. Today was one of them."

"These guys can really hit," Mussina said of the Rangers. "They can throw some runs up, they just waited until one inning to get all their hits. They put a scare in us, but in the end, we hung on."

Despite the near-catastrophe, Torre actually seemed encouraged by the one-run victory -- New York's first such win of the season.

"You know everybody isn't going to be great every time they go out there," Torre said. "It's awfully nice, after it's all said and done, to have outings like this and win the ballgame. Hopefully that's a good sign for us."