SON’ BURNED
Three-run homer in 4th does in lackluster Gray
This was a game the Yankees got Sonny Gray to win.
Matching up against a reeling Orioles team and struggling right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez, Gray instead came up with his worst performance as a Yankee, giving up five runs in just four innings in a 6-4 loss in The Bronx on Sunday.
“I don’t think I threw enough strikes and I couldn’t get the ball down,’’ Gray said following his shortest start of the season. “The first three innings, I had two outs and couldn’t finish and the same thing happened in the fourth. I didn’t give up the big hit until the fourth.’’
That big hit was a threerun homer by Tim Beckham.
With one on and two out, Gray allowed a single to Caleb Joseph and then a wild pitch moved both runners up a base.
Beckham came up next and drilled a three-run shot to left-center off a hanging slider to give the Orioles a 5-1 lead.
“I thought my stuff wasn’t as sharp from the get-go and it caught up to me in the fourth,’’ Gray said. “That was tough to see and tough to go through.’’
Manager Joe Girardi removed him after the inning, since it had taken Gray 80 pitches to get through four frames.
It was a stark difference from his previous outing, when Gray held the Rays to two runs over eight innings — although that game ended in a loss, as well.
In Gray’s nine outings since joining the Yankees from Oakland, the Yankees are 3-6.
Much of that is because of poor run support, since the Yankees entered Sunday having scored either one or no runs for the right-hander in five of his eight starts.
This time, though, the issue was primarily Gray.
“Some days are gonna be better than others,’’ Girardi said. “He got some ground balls that were just out of reach of some of our infielders and then the breaking ball he hung to Beckham. … He didn’t seem to have his normal command.”