NEW YORK -- Aroldis Chapman is dominant against most teams, but when it comes to the St. Louis Cardinals, he appears downright impossible to face.

Chapman turned in his 30th straight scoreless appearance against St. Louis by stranding two in the ninth to preserve a 4-3 win for the New York Yankees Friday night.

Chapman has not allowed a run to the Cardinals since giving up an RBI single to Rafael Furcal in the eighth inning of an 11-8 win for the Cincinnati Reds on Sept. 2, 2011. Since then, he has completely shut St. Louis down in every meeting, though Friday came close.

"He's a premier closer," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "People aren't used to seeing 102, 103 every day. It's not something you see every day. When he gets it down in the zone, when he gets it up in the zone, it's really hard to square him up."

Chapman had two outs when Randal Grichuk walked and pinch hitter Jose Martinez got enough of a 1-2 breaking ball and lined it to left field. The scoreless streak nearly ended as Grichuk was initially waved in by third base coach Chris Maloney before being instructed to stop at the last second.

"Anytime you see anyone square up against Chapman, you find it a little surprising," New York reliever Dellin Betances said.

Then Chapman reached 102 mph on a game-ending groundout to Dexter Fowler and the left-hander recorded his third save and finished off New York's fifth straight win.

"Nothing much to focus on the next hitter and make sure you get the next hitter out," Chapman said of his mindset after the Martinez hit.

When Fowler was retired, Chapman's streak against the Cardinals extended to 30 1/3 scoreless innings since the start of the 2012 season. Over that span, he has allowed seven hits, struck out 51 and issued nine walks.

"It's hard enough already, he's throwing 100 every single pitch," Betances said. "Guys are going to gear up to try and go on time with the fastball. Now he's mixing in off-speed, I feel bad for the hitters."

Navigating through trouble was the theme of the late innings in New York going to 4-0 at home for the first time since 2003.

Tyler Clippard relieved Masahiro Tanaka (1-1) with two on in the seventh after Grichuk's double made it a one-run game. He finished the inning by getting Kolten Wong and Fowler on long flyouts.

"That's the game right there," Betances said.

Betances quickly retired the first hitters in the eighth but walked Stephen Piscotty. He recovered in time to strike out Matt Adams to get the ball to Chapman.

The escape acts by New York's top three relievers enabled Tanaka to rebound decently from two difficult outings. He lowered his ERA from 11.74 to 8.36 by allowing three runs and five hits in 6 1/3 innings.

He allowed a long two-run home run to Matt Carpenter but also withstood several hard outs, struck out five and walked two in a 103-pitch outing.

Tanaka also did not trail for very long. After Carpenter homered three batters in, the Yankees tied it on Starlin Castro's two-run home run off Michael Wacha (1-1) with none out in the first.

The Yankees took a 3-2 lead on Austin Romine's solo home run in the second and scored what turned out to be the game-winning run in the fifth when Jacoby Ellsbury scored on a throwing error by second baseman Kolten Wong on a relay throw to the plate following a Chase Headley double.

Wong's error proved costly for the Cardinals, who are off to their first 3-7 start since the 1997 season. It also wasted a decent outing from Wacha, who allowed four runs (three earned) and nine hits in to go along with eight strikeouts in six innings.

"It (stinks) that little things like my error and things like that kind of kept him from going further," Wong said.

"We let them get through and mistakes hurt us right now, you go through those parts of the season where mistakes seem to be very crucial and every missed opportunity seems to be the one, but we'll get it figured out," St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. "We haven't got hot at all really yet and so get our offense going, get those big shut down innings and just put it all together, we haven't really done that yet."

NOTES: St. Louis C Yadier Molina appeared in a game in his 34th different ballpark. ... The last time the Cardinals faced the Yankees in New York was June 2003. In that series, managers Joe Girardi and Mike Matheny were catchers for St. Louis. ... C Gary Sanchez (strained right biceps) took some leg swings in the pool. He is not expected to start baseball activities until sometime next week. ... Friday marked the 62nd anniversary of C Elston Howard becoming the first African-American to play for the Yankees.