Sanchez goes a game without HR, Yanks fall
AT THIS POINT, it’s news when Gary Sanchez doesn’t hit a home run. That was the case Sunday, when the Yankees could have really used a blast or three from their young slugger. Sanchez went 2-for-4 but noticeably without any dingers, in the Yankees’ 5-0 loss to the Orioles at the Stadium as Kevin Gausman out-pitched CC Sabathia. “I mean it’s not every day you get to hit a home run,” Sanchez said through an interpreter after Sunday’s loss. On Saturday, Sanchez became the fastest player in major league history to reach 11 home runs as he reached the mark in his 23rd game. Sanchez, who was the DH on Sunday, raised his average for the season to .405 with the single and double he clubbed in the losing effort against Baltimore. The loss dropped the Yankees (67-62) to 3.5 games back of Baltimore, (71-59), which currently owns the second wild card spot. The Bombers are surprise contenders after selling off key assets in July, but are battling a slew of teams also vying for the postseason. On the brighter side, the Yankees did take two of three from their division rivals. “It’s not what you want,” Joe Girardi said. “But we’re playing good baseball and we’re winning series and that’s what we need to continue to do.” “If someone says you’re going to win a series against Baltimore, I think you’ll be pretty positive, but if you win the first two, then guys can get down a little bit. I’m not down,” the manager added. “I thought we played very well this weekend and we need to continue to do that. And if we do that, I’ll take our chances.”
Sabathia (8-11, 4.31 ERA) had a strong and efficient beginning to his outing, but faded in the seventh inning. The veteran starter finished with 6.2 innings pitched, charged with three earned runs with eight strikeouts and two walks. He was yanked trailing 1-0 with the bases loaded in the seventh inning but Adam Warren allowed two inheritted runners to score.
“I mean you want to win game,” Sabathia said. “Their guy was pitching good so I was just trying to keep us in there.”
Girardi said he thought Sabathia was “really good.” The manager noted that his starter may have gotten a little unlucky in his final inning of work because a weakly hit ball toward Starlin Castro that could have ended the seventh inning took a weird spin and got by the second baseman. Castro also was trying to avoid the runner on the play, and said he thought he would have gotten the out had there not been a runner.
“It’s just how it’s been going,” Sabathia said. “Soft contact and made the pitch but just didn’t get the result.” Gausman (6-10, 3.73 ERA) threw seven scoreless innings for the Orioles, fanning nine. He allowed seven hits and zero walks in dropping his ERA against the Yankees this season to 0.98.
Sanchez’s hard-hit ball on his first at-bat turned into a line-drive out when it flew directly at Orioles center fielder Nolan Reimold.
In the fourth, the Yankee phenom hit a Gausman slider off the end of his bat but for a base hit just to the right of second base. One batter later, Sanchez negated his hit with an out on the base paths when he was gunned down by Orioles’ right fielder Steve Pearce trying to go from first to third on a Mark Teixeira single. Manny Machado, who was out of position playing the shift, made a nice play to get back to the bag.
“I always say that mind has to be made up by the baserunner,” Girardi said. “It’s not (third base coach Joe Espada’s call). I think he was reading the third baseman and he took a gamble that he wasn’t going to get back there. It took a really good throw and a really good play by Machado. I don’t have a problem. It’s an aggressive play. we’ve been playing aggressive. That time it caught up to us.”
Sabathia and Gausman swapped zeroes through five frames before Pearce hit a bomb off Sabathia in the top of the sixth inning.
In the seventh, Sabathia ran into trouble. Jonathan Schoop had a one-out single to right field, and then with two outs the aforementioned nubber got past Castro. Sabathia followed up that with a four-pitch walk to Hyun Soon Kim, which prompted Joe Girardi to call to the bullpen for Warren.
“That was the big hitter of the game,” Girardi said.
Warren, however, couldn’t bail Sabathia out, allowing Pearce to drive in two more runs on a single off a 2-2 fastball to put the Orioles up 3-0.
Rookie Ben Heller, making his second appearance for the Yankees, surrendered two more runs in the eighth inning when Mark Trumbo hit a bomb with Machado aboard.