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CC Sabathia (L, 2-1; 8.0 IP, 4 H, 4 R/3 ER, 6 BB, 5 K, HR, 3.00 ERA) gave the Yankees bullpen a night off with another complete-game effort, but this time he took the loss (his first of the season) as the Yankee offense couldn’t overcome a 1st-inning 3-R HR Sabathia gave up to Kurt Suzuki. And despite getting solo HR from both Marcus Thames and Mark Teixeira and putting the offensive pressure on A’s pitcher Dallas Braden in the 6th, the offense came up just short.
The Yankee defense was stellar once again, despite allowing the first E in 13 games, and turned the first triple play in Yankee history since June 3, 1968. With runners on 1st and 2nd in the 6th inning, Kurt Suzuki, who had homered in the 1st inning, hit a sharp ground ball to A-Rod who stepped on 3B, threw to Robinson Cano at 2B. Cano then whirled it to Teixeira at 1B to complete the 5-4-3 around-the horn triple play.
There was an interesting exchange of words between A-Rod and Braden in the 6th after A-Rod jogged over the pitcher’s mound on his way back to 1B after a foul ball was hit by Robinson Cano. Braden took it as an “inexcusable” slight that someone would step on his mound in the middle of the game. And while I believe that A-Rod did it on purpose and was trying to get into Braden’s head to help the Yankees come back from the 4-0 deficit, I think that Braden’s comments after the game were an overly sensitive and stupid, saying that “there will be repercussions if this happens again.” This is stupid because now if he and the Yanks match up again and he tries to retaliate, he will probably be automatically ejected from the game if there is a single close pitch.
Game notes: The length of the game was a crisp 2:07, which is unheard of for the Yankees…the errorless-games streak ended at 12 after Cano made a wild throw on a double-play attempt that allowed Jake Fox to reach second base.
(AL East -0.5, 2nd; 8-2, L1; Home 5-1, Road 6-3)
[…] in Tuesday’s game. Another positive note from the day is that Dallas Braden—yes, that Dallas Braden—threw a perfect game against the Rays, which means that New York didn’t lose any ground […]