Mike Celizic

Too much can be made of one game, and in the case of Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 in a bone-chilling rain Sunday night, it probably will.

But it was the kind of win the New York Yankees haven’t had many of this season against the team that’s threatening to usurp New York’s nine-year reign as sovereigns of the AL East. And those looking for signs that the monster is alive will find plenty in the way it ended.

Alex Rodriguez, who’d just endured one of the more miserable weeks of his life as the Post-er boy for marital infidelity, took Jonathan Papelbon deep on an 0-2 pitch in the top of the ninth. And then Mariano Rivera, whom the Red Sox have lately treated as their personal batting practice pitcher, nailed it down.

The Yankees were in desperate need of a reason to believe in themselves. And after blowing a 4-0 lead and falling a run behind in the bottom of the fifth inning, it didn’t look as if one would be forthcoming. They’d played some terrible defense — a habit of theirs this year —

watched Andy Pettitte leave with what appeared to be an injury, and let Boston take control of the game and get into the back of their bullpen, where Hideki Okajima and Papelbon were sure to sew up another victory, just as they have done all year. And when the Yankees tied the score in the eighth, but failed three times to bring Robinson Cano in from third base, it looked as if they would end the night 14.5 games back and tied in the cellar with Tampa Bay.

But A-Rod, who had had three hits in his previous 16 at-bats, went deep with two outs. Mariano got Papi Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, hit Kevin Youkilis, then struck out Mike Lowell.

And Yankee fans could go to sleep thinking that this was that magic victory that will touch off a magical charge back up the standings and into first place. If A-Rod can hit in pressure situations, aren’t all things possible?

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That’s how the team — and the fans — have to think. They have to believe that their run of injuries and bad luck is over, that the enormous talent will finally wake up. They have to believe that A-Rod’s remarkable home run at the end of a miserable week is the hit that will make him the player they thought they had when he came over from Texas more than three years ago.

Certainly, the date — June 3, 2007 — is worth circling on the calendar, just in case it works out that way and you want to pinpoint the day when everything got better for the Bombers.

It’s not that easy, of course. The Yankees are off to Chicago, where they have four against the White Sox and nobody to pitch the first two games other than the ineffective Kei Igawa and the rookie Kyle Clippard. For Sunday night in Boston to mean anything, they have to back it up with big things on Monday and Tuesday nights in Chicago.

They finally won a big game the way the Yankees used to win them all the time. But they’re still six games under .500, still 12.5 behind Boston, still closer to last place than to first. They still need to go 71-37 the rest of the way to finish with the 95 wins it will probably take to secure a playoff spot.