Bombers humiliated in sloppy effort after 19-inning marathon
Yankee Stadium is known throughout the globe as a baseball palace. Saturday, the Yankees turned The House The Boss Built into the world’s largest commode.
The retired numbers are above the left-field bleachers. Monument Park sits beyond center field. Pennants marking the 27 World Series titles front the suites. With that backdrop the Yankees were embarrassed by the Red Sox, 8-4, inn front of an announced crowd of 446,678 that had to be repulsed by the way the home team played one night after dropping a 19-inning decision.
Until the eighth ii nning, t he Yankkees had one hit. Three errors, and there could have been at least one mmore, hiked the five-game total to an alarming eight. For the second straight game, backup catcher John Ryan Murphy was charged with a passed ball and he had a throwing error. Chris Martin failed out of the bullpen and the Alex Rodriguez experiment at first base produced an unearned run when he couldn’t catch a shin-high throw from Didi Gregorius in the second inning. And the 1-4 Yankees are hitting .193 overall and .167 (6-for-36) with runners in scoring position. “SSometimes you get off to slow starts,’’ manager Joe Girardi said of his club that was supposed to be a lot better defensively than it has shown in five games. “It’s difficult [when] you are not scoring runs early, playing from behind all the time and makiing mistakes defenssively and making mistakes baserunning wise. We are not hitting enough to cover those up. That’s why we are 1-4.’’
Rodriguez, whose ssingle was the only hit in the first seven frames, simplified the problems at the plate.
“I think it’s just time for us to play good baseball and not try to do too much,” Rodriguez said. “It’s early and I felt the team showed a lot of grit [Friday] night a lot of character guys worked hard never gave up and guys came back today ready to play and that’s something to build on.”
Five games don’t make a season, unless it’s the NFL. However, the Yankees preached all spring about how a better defense would aid a pitching staff and take some of the load off a lineup that was suspect.
Until Gregorio Petit and Brett Gardner singled with two outs and Chris Young homered in the eighth, the Yankees had one hit. From the second out of the second to the end of the seventh, Red Sox starter Joe Kelly retired 17 straight.
“Obviously these guys know how to play the game, we have to turn it around,’’ Girardi said.
Where do you start? The anemic lineup? Or the faulty defense?
“It’s a small sample size and I expect us to be a good defensive club,’’ said Chase Headley, whose throwing error in the eighth (second of the season) helped fuel a three-run Red Sox rally. “There have been some miscues early but there are 157 games to go and get it cleaned up. We have to play better, we are better than that. We have to clean it up. These type of games the team that plays cleaner usually wins.’’
Adam Warren’s 5 1/ 3 inning start marked the first trip through the rotation and put the Yankees in position to win. He left trailing, 2-1, and watched Martin fall apart in the seventh. Matt Tracy gave up three more in the eighth making his major league debut.
“We gave up a number of runs we shouldn’t have’’ said Girardi, who sends Masahiro Tanaka to the mound Sunday night attempting to avoid being swept by the Yankees’ blood rivals and starting a 10-game road trip in Baltimore on Monday night with a 1-5 ledger. “To score nine runs every day would be tough.’’
From what we have seen in five games, try impossible.