Game 100: Yankees 2, Rays 6

July 29, 2009 by Jason@IIATMS

A bad game was bound to happen eventually, and the Yankee’s filled last night’s contest against the Rays with as much bad baseball as they could. Luckily, Jonathan Papelbon let a Boston 3-run lead slip away from him in the ninth and the A’s beat the Red Sox in extra innings, keeping the Yankees 2.5 games ahead in the AL East.

CC was clearly not sharp last night. He got into trouble in the second inning, in part due to a throwing error by Jeter. He minimized the damage to one run, but the third inning spelled more of the same. This time the Rays were able to score 2-runs, with help from a throwing error on A-Rod. Matsui got New York on the board with a RBI single in the top of the fourth, but then promptly overran first and got tagged out. Longoria went long off CC in the fifth and the Rays added two more runs in the sixth to put the Yanks in a 6-1 hole when Sabathia left the mound. Girardi either had already given up or heard every beat reporter, blogger and fan that wondered why Melancon was warming the bench, so he gave the kid a shot. He pitched 2.1 innings of shutout ball, but the damage was done and the Yankees lost 6-2.

Select View Full Post to continue reading.

Bad News:
CC: In 5.2 innings pitched he gave up 9 hits, 6 runs (5 earned), walked two and struck out 6. He wasn’t helped by the poor defense, but it was clear CC didn’t have it last night.

Defense: The Yankee defense has really improved from the last couple seasons. Obviously Teixeira is a big part of that, but there are some throws even he can’t stop. Jeter and A-Rod both threw the ball away for errors, but there were other poor defensive plays that certainly did not help. Zobrist’s “triple” was mostly due to Nick Swisher misplaying a hit down the first baseline and then doing his best Bobby Abreu while he tried to catch up with the ball.

Offense: Kazmir definitely looked better than he has this season, however, the Yankees batters did not capitalize on his mistakes. Jeter, Damon, Cano and Cabrera all went 3-0 and the Yankees as a team went 2-7 with runners in scoring position.

Good News:
Melancon: The kid finally got in a game and threw 2.1 scoreless innings. He only gave up one hit and had 2 Ks.

Matsui: Ignoring his embarrassing baserunning mishap in the fourth, Matsui went 2-4 and had both of the Yankees RBIs.

A-Rod: He was the only other Yankee to have a multi-hit game, going 2-4 and scoring a run.

In the On Deck Circle:

First pitch tonight is at 7:08pm at the Trop. Joba Chamberlain (6-2, 3.86) takes the mound for the Yankees tonight against Matt Garza (7-7, 3.68). Joba has looked mighty good in his last few starts, so hopefully he can put the Bombers in position to bounce back after last night’s lackluster performance. Garza won’t make it easy, he’s pitched very well this year and his last outing held the Blue Jays to two runs over nine innings.

Since I will be joining as the daily recap writer Jason thought it would be good for me to introduce myself. So, here is some random biographical info for you all! I grew up on the shoreline of Connecticut where I had my first Yankees hat by the time I was a year old. I love everything about baseball and the Yankees will always be number one in my book! These days I am “temporarily misplaced” in New Hampshire, the heart of Red Sox country, so I have taken to the computer to get my fix of everything Yankees. In college I played field hockey and softball and wrote for the sports section of the school newspaper. I went to law school in Cleveland, so I have adopted the Indians as my number two team, however, I was there for the whole Lake Erie Midge debacle and I still haven’t forgiven those bugs! Finally, my favorite Yankees of all time are: Bernie Williams, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig.

 
Digg Delicious Mixx StumbleUpon Digg

Sorry, comments are closed.



Go To Top »
premium wordpress themes