BATTERED & BRUISED
Betances blows it for injury-riddled Yankees
CHICAGO — Tyler Clippard and Dellin Betances have lockers next to each other in the visitor’s clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field while the Yankees are playing the White Sox this week.
Tuesday night the relievers took turns in front of those stalls explaining how they each helped a two-run Yankees lead in the eighth turn into a 4-3 loss an inning later that was witnessed by an announced crowd of 18,023.
With Chad Green not available after throwing two innings Sunday, Adam Warren on the disabled list and Betances slated for the ninth because Joe Girardi didn’t want to tax Aroldis Chapman’s left arm with three straight days of work, the manager turned to neophyte Domingo German to protect a 3-1 lead in the seventh.
Two walks later Girardi was calling for the beleaguered Clippard, who walked Melky Cabrera to load the bases with no one out. Clippard rebounded to retire the next two hitters before a walk to Todd Frazier forced in a run that shaved the Yankees’ lead to 3-2.
With that one-run advantage intact heading to the home ninth, Betances surfaced from the pen. Like Chapman, he had worked Sunday and Monday, but Betances wasn’t coming back from a DL stint.
What followed was shocking. With one out, Betances walked two batters and hit a third. He got Cabrera to foul out for the second out, but at 2-1 to Jose Abreu, Betances came with a sixth straight offspeed pitch that Abreu hit on the ground between short and third for a game-winning, two-run single.
“I got myself in trouble and didn’t make a pitch when I needed it,’’ said Betances, who absorbed a second blown save and is 3-2. “At 2-1 I didn’t want to go to 3-1 and he hit it in the hole.’’
Because Clippard was so bad in his previous six outings (11 earned runs; 10 hits and a .476 batting average against) he actually viewed Tuesday night’s appearance in a positive light.
“I felt like myself again, the way hitters reacted to my fastball, it was huge step in the right direction,’’ said Clippard, who walked two, struck out two and walked in a run in the eighth. “Obviously, I didn’t want to walk in a run. It’s a weird loss.’’
The Yankees’ 11th loss in 14 games coupled with the Red Sox winning dropped the Yankees one game behind their blood rivals in the AL East race.
The late-inning meltdown by the bullpen — the seventh game in the past 14 a reliever has taken the loss — also flushed a sensational outing by Luis Severino. In seven innings he allowed a run, six hits, fanned a careerhigh 12 and didn’t issue a walk.
After Jose Quintana and Anthony Swarzak blanked the Yankees through seven, the visitors erased a 1-0 deficit in the eighth against former Yankee prospect Tommy Kahnie. Aaron Judge provided an RBI single and Gary Sanchez smoked a two-run double to right-center for a 3-1 lead that German helped give back immediately. “We liked the power in his changeup, when he struggled we went to Clip,’’ Girardi said of German.
Asked if he was affected by a third straight day of work, Betances didn’t alibi for a misbehaving breaking ball.
“I couldn’t get it over for a strike,’’ said Betances, who admitted he may have been using the 84mph pitch at the expense of a fastball that reaches 100 mph. “I got breaking ball happy. I have had a good fastball this year and never really went to it.’’
Betances may as well not wear his spikes Wednesday because he won’t pitch. Warren remains on the DL and Clippard threw 27 pitches. All that means that Girardi’s pen will be short again.
“It’s a hard loss but we will bounce back [Wednesday night],’’ said Girardi, whose lineup lost Aaron Hicks and Starlin Castro to the DL Sunday and Monday, respectively, and likely won’t have DH Matt Holliday for a fourth straight game due to illness.
That drops a lot of pressure on Masahiro Tanaka who, like Severino, will work in front of a suspect pen.