What looked like a nice and tidy 2-1 win to take Sunday’s game from the Twins turned into a revenge-fueled 7-2 loss in a hurry. With the help of a pair of former Yankees, Minnesota grabbed the series finale and sent the Bombers home with a hard to swallow loss.
Bad Ninth Inning
The bottom top of the ninth might have been the worst inning of the season to date. The Yankees nursed a one-run lead for four innings before handing the ball off to David Robertson, who promptly allowed a game-tying solo homer to Josh Willingham on his very first pitch. No mystery here, it was just a bad pitch up in the zone. The blown save was Robertson’s second of the season, joining the Adam Dunn walk-off homer in Chicago a week ago.
Blowing the lead was bad enough, but then the Twins piled on for five more runs in that ninth inning. Robertson alternated strikeouts and walks the next four batters, putting two on with two outs. He left another pitch up in the zone to All-Star-to-be Brian Dozier, who tomahawked it down the left field line for a go-ahead double. Robertson issued an intentional walk to Joe Mauer and was pulled from the game. He was all over the place and it looks like he could use a few days off after being asked to get all those four-out saves the last few weeks.
Matt Daley replaced Robertson, threw one pitch, and allowed a two-run double to ex-Yankee Eduardo Nunez. Nothing quite like getting beat by Eduardo Scissorhands, huh? In came Matt Thornton to face the lefty swinging Oswaldo Arcia, and he allowed a two-run single to center. The Twins scored six runs in the inning including five with two outs. Robertson was charged with four of those runs, so he went from a 2.08 ERA to a 4.50 ERA in an afternoon. It’ll take him all season to work that outing off.
Three Hits In Phil’s Return
Phil Hughes pitched very well in his return to Yankee Stadium. Certainly better than he did at any point in the Bronx over the last few years. He held the Yankees to three hits and all three came consecutively: Brett Gardner tripled off the right field wall to lead off the fourth, Derek Jeter lined a Jeterian single to right to score the run, then Jacoby Ellsbury followed with another single to put runners on the corners. Ichiro Suzuki later plated Jeter with a sacrifice fly.
Four of the six batters who put the ball in play in that fourth inning did so within the first three pitches of the at-bat. Hughes has always been a guy who gets ahead in the count with his fastball — his percentage of 0-2 counts last year was the second highest in baseball behind Cliff Lee, for example — and the Yankees took advantage by jumping on fastballs early in the count. It worked very well in that fourth inning after the lineup turned over, but not much after that.
Following Brian McCann’s walk to load the bases in the fourth (more on that later), Hughes settled down and retired the final 15 men he faced. His final line was those two runs on three hits and two walks in eight innings. Caleb Thielbar retired the side in order in the ninth, so the final 18 batters the Yankees sent to the plate made outs. New York scored six runs in the three-game series and Minnesota started two pitchers who had the two highest ERAs in baseball (Ricky Nolasco and Kevin Correia). Impressive stuff.
Whitley’s Yankee Stadium Debut
For the first time in his brief Major League career, Chase Whitley faced a lineup with a DH on Sunday afternoon. His first three starts came on the road against the Mets, the Cubs, and the Cardinals. The extra hitter didn’t seem to bother Whitley at all — he held the Twins to one run in five innings of work, which is more or less the norm for him so far in his career. Five hits (all singles) and no walks with six strikeouts in those five innings.
The Twins scored that one run in the third inning because, well, the infield defense stinks. It’s a factor every game. A ground ball two steps to Jeter’s right scooted by for a leadoff single, Brian Roberts muffed a potential double play ball and was only able to get the out at first, then Trevor Plouffe hit a legitimate single to left to score Aaron Hicks from second with two outs. This defense, man. Whitley shook it off and retired nine of the final 12 men he faced, and one of the three exceptions was an infield single off that bounced in and out of Yangervis Solarte’s glove. There’s that defense again. Whitely only threw 83 pitches and it’s pretty clear the Yankees don’t want him going through the opposing lineup a third time. That’s fine, five innings of one-run ball from the eighth starter is cool with me.
Leftovers
The top four hitters in the lineup went a combined 3-for-14 with two walks. The bottom five went 0-for-14. Yuck. McCann is starting to draw some walks (two in this game, seven in his last 12 games) and looks way more comfortable at the plate lately. It’s almost like adjusting to a new league and having to learn an entirely new pitching staff hurt his offense for a few weeks.
Betances retired all six batters he faced in the sixth and seventh innings, five on strikeouts and one on a weak ground ball to third. Typical Dellin, really. I was hoping Joe Girardi would send him back out for the eighth because a) he had only thrown 22 low-stress pitches, and b) he is probably going to try to stay away from Betances on Monday anyway, so why not maximize this outing? Alas. Adam Warren pitched around a two-out ground rule double in the eighth before Robertson imploded in the ninth.
Gardner dove head-first into first base with two outs in the eighth inning. Hustle is great but that is such a dangerous and unnecessary play. The Yankees challenged the close call, which was upheld. I’m going to pretend the review crew in midtown ruled Gardner out on principle for sliding head-first into first.
McCann ended Hughes’ walk-less streak at 179 batters, 45.2 innings, and six starts. As best I can tell, that is the longest an AL pitcher has gone between walks since former Twin Brad Radke in 2005 (191 batters). Twins pitchers, man.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
For the box score and video highlights, head over to MLB.com. FanGraphs has some additional stats and ESPN has the updated standings.
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
Robinson Cano and the Mariners come back to town for a quick little one-game series on Monday night. That is the makeup game of last month’s rainout, which I’m sure you remember. David Phelps will be on the mound against Felix Hernandez. Of course it’s Felix. RAB Tickets can get you in the door if you want to catch that game or any of the other three games left on the homestand.
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