This is how I concluded my pregame post last night:
The Yankees have scored 2.38 runs per game in the seventh, eight, and ninth innigs alone. The major league average is just 1.47 R/G in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. Meanwhile, the April 15 game mentioned above was the only save the Rays bullpen has blown all season.
With that in mind, let’s skip straight to the eighth inning of last night’s game. A.J. Burnett had been sharp, striking out eight against just two walks in his six innings of work, but the Rays manufactured a run against him in the third and pushed across two more in the sixth on a walk, a single, a bunt, a sac fly, and another single. The Yankees, meanwhile, had been completely stymied by Andy Sonnanstine, who enjoyed his best start of the young season.
Entering the bottom of the eighth, Sonnanstine had held the Yanks scoreless on four hits and no walks. He had gotten 11 of his 21 outs on the ground, and had thrown just 85 pitches. With one out, Ramiro Peña worked an eight-pitch at-bat, eventually singling to right field. Jose Molina followed Peña with a double on Sonnanstine’s 99th pitch that drove the Rays’ starter from the game. After Dan Wheeler struck out Derek Jeter for the second out, Joe Maddon called on lefty J.P. Howell, who proceeded to walk Johnny Damon on five pitches, putting the tying run on base for Mark Teixeira.
As all of this happened, the skies suddenly opened up, and what had been a relatively dry ballgame became drenched in a blinding downpour. Straining to see trough the rain, Teixeira, batting right-handed, swung through Howell’s first pitch then took two more for balls. He swung again at the 2-1 pitch and snapped his bat in half, but in doing so sent the ball down into the left field corner for a bases-clearing, game-tying double.
Then the tarp came out. After a half-hour rain delay, lefty Brian Shouse struck out Hideki Matsui to keep the game tied. After Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless top of the ninth, the Yankees threatened again. Robinson Cano led off with a single to center. That would have brought Nick Swisher to the plate, but Swisher had been ejected by home plate umpire James Hoye in the seventh following an inning-ending called third strike on a pitch that was pretty clearly outside. Instead, Brett Gardner stepped to the plate and bunted Cano to second. After the game, Swisher was asked if he felt guilty about not being able to hit in his spot there. Swisher, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before getting tossed, shrugged and replied that Gardner was at least able to get the ball into play.
After Gardner’s sacrifice, righty Joe Nelson came on and walked Melky Cabrera. Peña then hit a slow grounder to third that had the potential to be an infield single. Evan Longoria charged the ball and fired to first and umpire Dale Scott punched out Peña, but the replay showed that Peña had beaten the throw by a fraction of a step. Jose Molina followed with would otherwise have been a game-winning sac fly to right, but was instead the third out.
With the game heading into the tenth and Rivera having already worked his inning, Joe Girardi turned to Phil Coke, who hadn’t allowed a run in nine appearances dating back to mid-April. Coke’s first pitch to Carlos Peña was a ball. His second was on the outside third of the plate at the knee, headed right toward Jose Molina’s glove until the major league home run leader reached out and deposited it in the right field box seats. Coke then retired the next three men in order.
The Yankees’ last hope came against Troy Percival in the ninth. After a Jeter groundout, Johnny Damon hit a ground rule double over B.J. Upton’s head and into monument park. That brought up reigning Yankee hero Mark Teixeira, who had driven in all three Yankee runs with that double in his previous at-bat. Percival’s first pitch to Teixeira sailed high and past Dioner Navarro, allowing the alert Damon to scramble to third base. All Teixeira had to do to tie the game was lift a sac fly to the outfield. Teixeira took ball two, then got a pitch up in the zone he could lift, but he got under it too much and popped up to shallow right, freezing Damon at third. Hideki Matsui followed by flying out to left to end the game and give the Rays a 4-3 victory.
Teixeira was furious at himself for failing to get Damon home and appeared to be trying to break his batting helmet on the way back to the bat rack. Teixeira had a similar sort of game on Monday, another game that featured a rain delay. In that game, which the Yankees lost 6-4 to the Red Sox, Teixeira hit a solo home runs from opposite sides of the plate in consecutive at-bats, but struck out against Jonathan Papelbon with the tying runs on base in the ninth. Reverse the order of those at-bats and he’s a clutch performer, even if the Yankees still lose 6-4. Same deal last night. That rain-soaked double was a huge clutch hit, but because he got under that pitch from Percival with the tying run 90 feet from home, he gets the goat horns for the night despite the fact that he was the only Yankee to drive in a run all game. So goes baseball. As Coke said in reference to losing the game on what he felt was a good pitch “it’s a game of failure, you know.”
Yeah, Phil, we do.
