I guess the good news is the Yankees scored more than two runs on Wednesday night. They also scored more than three runs for the first time on the homestand. They still lost though, this time 7-4 to the Athletics. The Yankees have lost four straight, five of six, and 19 of 33.
Three Runs, One Swing
It’s amazing what happens when you hit the ball out of the park, isn’t it? The Yankees have spent the last few weeks trying to string together base hits to score multiple runs, and while they still did some of that in the four-run third inning, a rare homerun did most of the damage.
The start of that third inning was rather ominous for righty Jesse Chavez, who walked Ichiro Suzuki on four pitches to start things off. John Ryan Murphy struck out, then Brett Gardner laced a line drive single to center to put runners on the corners with one out. The double play possibility was very real with Derek Jeter at the plate, but thankfully Gardner took care of that with a stolen base. The one thing the A’s don’t do well is control the running game.
Jeter opened the scoring with a soft ground ball to shortstop, soft enough to go for a run-scoring infield single. Gardner was unable to advance to third on the ball. That’s when something weird happened: the Yankees hit a homer. Jacoby Ellsbury, specifically. I thought it was ticketed for extra bases into the gap off the bat, but the just kept carrying and carrying and carrying. It landed in the home bullpen and was the team’s third three-run homer of the season. That’s all. Three three-run homers in 58 games. Yangervis Solarte and Brian McCann have the others. Ellsbury’s blast gave the Yankees what felt like a comfortable four-run lead.
Lead? What Lead?
Of course, no lead is truly comfortable against the highest scoring team in baseball, especially not with Joe Girardi’s usual late-inning relievers hitting a bump in the road lately. Vidal Nuno gave a solo homer to the very first batter he faced after being staked to a four-run lead, and then an inning later Jed Lowrie lifted a sac fly to the right field warning track to cut the lead to 4-2. Nuno put the number eight (Alberto Callaspo walked) and nine (Nick Punto singled) hitters on base to set that rally up. The Lowrie sac fly was dangerously close to a three-run homer.
Things got out of hand in the sixth inning. Matt Daley replaced Nuno with two outs in the fifth because Girardi didn’t want the soft-tossing lefty facing Josh Donaldson a third time. Daley retired Donaldson to end the fifth, then served up a solo homer to Cespedes to open the sixth.The next batter, catcher Derek Norris, reached base on Jeter’s throwing error to set up the game-tying rally. The routine throw short-hopped first base. Unfortunately that’s become the norm this year.
In came Matt Thornton to face the left-handed Brandon Moss, who promptly singled to center on the field pitch. It was a soft, well-placed single to beat the shift. Girardi opted to keep Thornton in to face a parade of righties, which worked as well as you’d expect: Kyle Blanks drew a walk and Callaspo lifted a game-tying sac fly to the left field warning track. Like Lowrie’s an inning earlier, it was very close to being a homer. The Athletics sent 13 men to the plate at one point from the fourth through sixth innings, and eight reached base to erase the four-run deficit.
These Are Not The Relievers You’re Looking For
The score was knotted at four after six innings, so, naturally, Girardi turned the game over to the two relievers who were added to the roster earlier in the day. Jose Ramirez made his big league debut in the seventh and allowed a go-ahead solo homer to Donaldson on his fifth career pitch. He allowed three base-runners and just that one run in two innings of work. Not a terrible debut, all things considered.
Wade LeBlanc got the ball in the ninth inning, which went single (Lowrie), single (Donaldson), ground out (Cespedes), intentional walk (Derek Norris), hit-by-pitch to score a run (Moss), sac fly to score another run (Blanks), ground out (Callaspo). A one-run game became a three-run game because the worst reliever on the team was in the ballgame. I guess that’s better than burning through the good bullpeners in a game they were going to lose anyway.
Leftovers
I didn’t even bother to watch the bottom of the ninth because a) the (hockey) Rangers were playing, and b) they weren’t going to score anyway. Sure enough, the game log tells me they went down 1-2-3 in the ninth. Gardner had two hits and Ellsbury had three hits. The rest of the lineup had four hits. Ellsbury’s homer was the only extra-base hit, of course. The Yankees have had exactly one extra-base hit in four straight games. No more, no less.
Nuno failed to complete a full five innings for the fourth time in his last eight starts. Three relievers combined to allow five runs (four earned) on six hits, three walks, and a hit batsman in 4.1 innings. The bullpen picked a really bad time to start stinking, huh?
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and video highlights, head over to MLB.com. FanGraphs has some much nerdier stats and ESPN has the up to the minute standings.
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
The Yankees will look to avoid being swept on Thursday afternoon, assuming it doesn’t rain. If it doesn’t, Masahiro Tanaka and Drew Pomeranz will be on the mound. At least this team is still watchable once every five days. Check out RAB Tickets if you want to chance Mother Nature and attend the game.
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