Teixeira blasts 2 HRs in win
Mark Teixeira provided two homers and a pair of fielding gems. Stephen Drew added a lategame home run. Bryan Mitchell, Justin Wilson and Dellin Betances delivered killer work out of the bullpen after CC Sabathia gave them a chance to win.
Now, Andrew Miller watched the A’s Marcus Semien’s seat seeking missile cut through the muggy Bronx air on the way over the leftfield wall in the ninth inning Wednesday night for a tworun homer that suddenly made it a onerun game.
And when third baseman Gregorio Petit’s throwing error put the potential tying run on second with two outs in the final frame, the Yankees were a cheap hit away from flushing what looked like a sure feelgood victory an inning earlier.
Fortunately for the Yankees, Miller, who was pitching for the first time since early June, induced Ben Zobrist to hit a slow roller to Petit that turned into the final out of a 54 Yankees win thatwas witnessed by 41,626 Yankee Stadium customers.
“I enjoyed the win,’’ Teixeira said of the victory that stopped a twogame Yankees slide. “You have a night like that and don’t win it’s tough.’’
When A’s starter Scott Kazmir left after three innings with a tight left triceps muscle, Teixeira greeted righthander Evan Scribner with a leadoff homer in the fourth. He repeated that in the sixth to hike the homer total to 22 and the RBI count to 61.
“He basically won the game for us singlehandedly,’’ Brett Gardner said of Teixeira, who reached across the firstbase dugout railing in the seventh to make a catch and robbed Josh Reddick of an extrabase hit with a diving stop over the firstbase bag to end the eighth.
With the victory, which went to Sabathia ( 48), the Yankees’ AL East lead is 2 ½ games over the Orioles and Blue Jays.
When Drew homered to right with two outs in the eighth itwas viewed as a cushion. Thanks to Miller’s ninth inning, the blast was the difference.
“He hit a pitch I wanted to throw. I just threw the wrong pitch. It did some damage,’’ Miller said. “I thought I was throwing strikes. It was just one of those days. Thankfully we got some extra tack on runs from Stephen Drew.’’
Sabathia, who had his right knee drained last week and will have it tapped again during the All Star break, went 5 ¹ / ₃ innings, allowed two runs and seven hits. It was his first win since June 7 and came with eight days’ rest.
“Hopefully later in the season I can get deeper into games,’’ Sabathia said.
As for Drew, Girardi described the second baseman’s season as “strange.’’ Drew’s batting average is .179 and the onbase percentage sits at .254, but it’s hard to ignore the dozen homers.
“Look at the stats and the line drives that have been caught, it’s pretty crazy,’’ said Drew, who entered the game in the seventh inning as a defensive replacement for Jose Pirela. “I have to keep my head and keep grinding. It’s very strange at the least. I am looking forward to the second half.’’