The Yankees scored two runs off Joe Kennedy in the first inning of Friday night’s game against the A’s. Mike Mussina made that hold up for seven innings and, after Kyle Farnsworth let two men on in the eighth, Mariano Rivera came on to get the last four outs to secure a 2-1 win.
On Sunday, the Yankees were still looking for their third run of the series as they had been one-hit by Chad Gaudin and Rich Harden on Saturday in a 7-0 loss. Kei Igawa pitched well in Saturday’s game with the significant exception of the three home runs he allowed in 6 1/3 innings. One of those dingers was hit by Jason Kendall, who had previously hit a total of two home runs in his two and a half seasons with the A’s. Scott Proctor gave up hits to three of the four men he faced in relief of Igawa and, with Mike Myers’ help, all three men came around to score. After the game, Proctor, still reeling from walking in the winning run in Baltimore, burned his glove and spikes in front of the dugout.
The Yankees finally broke through to score five runs in Sunday’s finale, but it didn’t do them much good as Andy Pettitte got lit up for eight runs before a single Yankee crossed the plate. Pettitte, who said after the game that, despite a good warmup, he had absolutely no command and that his pitches were just centering themselves over the plate, got the hook with two outs in the A’s seven-run second inning. Ron Villone pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings as the Yankees rallied to make it 8-5, but Mike Myers and Luis Vizcaino allowed a trio of insurance runs (Myers’ again being an inherited runner, this time charged to Brian Bruney) to put the game out of reach at the eventual final of 11-5. Proctor, breaking in his new equipment, finished things off by retiring the four batters he faced on nine pitches (six strikes).
And so the Yankees’ slide continues as they fall to 2-9 over their last four series, all of which they lost. They’re now four games under .500, which is where they were on June 7, and a whopping nine games out in the Wild Card race behind five other teams including the departing A’s. Suddenly the AL East, where they’re in third place, 11 games behind Boston, seems more winnable. Tomorrow they begin a four-game series against the Twins, who are another of those five teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race (and one with a nearly identical record to the A’s). They pretty much need to sweep that one. Johan Santana pitches on Wednesday. (Do you see where I’m going with this?)
