Peter Foley / EPA

Roger Clemens shook off some early struggles and gave the surging Yankees the lift they were looking for, leading them to a 9-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in his long-awaited season debut Saturday.

Clemens gave up a clean single in the first to leadoff batter Jose Bautista, who advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on Adam LaRoche’s two-out single.

The Yankees quickly gave Clemens a 3-1 lead in the bottom half. Jeter’s double put runners at second and third before Rodriguez hit an RBI groundout. Jeter scored on Jorge Posada’s single, and Cano added an RBI single off Paul Maholm (2-9).

Clemens couldn’t hold it. With two outs in the fourth, he walked light-hitting Ronny Paulino before Jack Wilson hit a two-run double over right fielder Bobby Abreu’s head to tie it 3-all.

Posada’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the fifth put the Yankees ahead, and they made it 6-3 in the sixth on Abreu’s RBI single and Rodriguez’s sacrifice fly off John Grabow.

Cano opened the bottom half with a double and the Yankees added two runs on a throwing error by left fielder Jason Bay and an RBI grounder by Johnny Damon.

Maholm dropped to 0-5 in his past six starts.

“The most disappointing thing today is that defensively we didn’t play well,” Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. “You’re not going to beat this team playing like that.”

Notes: The Yankees pulled off a pair of double steals in the sixth and hit three sacrifice flies overall. ... Pittsburgh placed reliever Salomon Torres on the 15-day disabled list with inflammation in his right elbow and purchased the contract of RHP Masumi Kuwata from Triple-A Indianapolis.

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