Yanks come back against Red Sox (again), lose anyway (again)

Source: FanGraphs

Same story, different day. The Yankees are playing a pretty crummy brand of baseball these days, winning just three of their last ten games against three teams that are a combined one game under-.500. To make matters worse, five of those seven losses have come by one run. That’s brutal. Let’s recap…

• My Hiro: Man, Hiroki Kuroda is just awesome. Eight innings of two-run ball, a career-best four ground ball double plays … and a no decision. Life isn’t fair. He came into the game with the eighth worst run support (5.44 runs per game) in the AL and it managed to go down.
• One Man Army: All of the offense came from Russell Martin, at leave the driving in runs part. He hit a solo homer off Felix Doubront — a below-average pitcher (97 ERA+) who the Yankees have made look like Cy Young three times this year — in the seventh then singled in Andruw Jones to tie the game in the eighth. The eighth inning rally started with two outs, so hooray for that.
• Bleeder & Blooper: David Robertson created his own mess in the tenth by walking Jarrod Saltalamacchia and his .285 OBP to lead off the inning, but the Red Sox scored the go-ahead run on a little ground ball single that scooted through the infield and a bloop that dunked into shallow right. The walk’s clearly on Robertson, the other stuff just kinda happens. Sucks.
• Leftovers: Robinson Cano went 0-for-5 and saw 16 total pitches on the day his agent said he wants a ten-year deal #timingfail … Ichiro Suzuki had an infield single and still has exactly one hit in every game with the Yankees, but he also made the final out of an inning with a man in scoring position three times (!) … the top four hitters in the lineup went a combined 1-for-19 with a walk and six strikeouts, the bottom five hitters went 7-for-21 with four walks and five strikeouts … Rafael Soriano only threw eight pitches in a scoreless ninth, and he probably would have gone back out for a second inning had he not pitched on Saturday … absolutely weak effort by the fans on Mark Teixeira’s foul ball in the tenth, they let Ryan Sweeney lean right in to catch it for the out.

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the nerd stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Orioles won, so the lead in the division is down to eight games. They’re coming to town for a three-game set starting Monday, when Freddy Garcia gives it a go against rookie Miguel Gonzalez. Check out RAB Tickets for the latest deals.