As the Yankees were seemingly heading straight to hell in the standings, a few games against the Kansas City Royals would typically be a cure for all the ails, but the Yanks were only able to split against the Royals a few weekends ago and scoring runs has been impossible lately.
Manager Joe Girardi helped seal it for the Royals by bringing Freddy Garcia out of the bullpen in the 6th inning and his batting-practice quality array of pitches gave up a 2-run bomb to Jeff Francoeur for a 5-0 lead. The Royals would go on to win 6-0 and put the Yankees season record at .500 and on the way to the AL East basement. Ineffective as a starter, Freddy Garcia is also proving to be useless out of the bullpen as well and his $4 million dollar contract the steal of the century.
Rumors swirled before the next game that the Yankees held a team meeting to discuss important issues such as why they suck so much lately. In addition, reports in the media were that the Steinbrenner family had interest in testing the waters of selling the franchise, due to the recent big money the sale of the Dodgers organization raked in. Yankees top brass and management denied both stories and it up to Phil Hughes to stop the never-ending avalanche of losing.
The Yankees right-hander was up to the task as he continues to turn his tide this season and his love-handles was able to limit the Royals to 2 runs in his 6 innings of work, which included 7 strikeouts. Cano finally got the Yankees on the board in the 4th inning with a solo shot off of Luke Hochevar. An inning later the Yankees had one of their usual bases loaded and nobody out situations, but shockingly, instead of flushing the opportunity down the toilet, the Yankees got the weird idea of using it to score runs (perhaps the idea a result of the brainstorming from the rumored team meeting). Derek Jeter singled in a run and Curtis Granderson followed that up with a RBI groundout. The Yankees took a rare lead at 3-2 and Girardi pieced the bullpen together the rest of the way. Tension was high in the bottom of the 9th as Rafael Soriano was on the hill with two outs and the Royals with the tying run on 3rd base, but Alicides Escobar grounded out and the Yanks had won their first game in seemingly forever.
With the remembrance of victory fresh in their minds, the Yankees set out to do it again in the final game against the Royals. Royals youngster Will Smith took the mound, and with his family in attendance, the Yankees offense properly embarrassed him.
Curtis Granderson jumped on Smith in the 1st inning for a solo homerun, and then a few batters later Alex Rodriguez repeated the power feat with a 2-run shot to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. A-Rod woke up from his season long slumber and added another homerun in the 3rd inning, a 421 foot bomb to left-center which put the Yanks ahead 5-0. That was more than enough for Andy Pettitte as he went 7 strong innings and only gave up two measly solo homers in his third start of the season.
It was a 8-3 victory for the Yankees and the tweaking of Rodriguez's swing by hitting coach Kevin Long seemed to have paid off. More good news for the Yankees, both Brett Gardner and David Robertson were cleared to report to Tampa to begin their road to recovery from their DL stints.
The team resumed it awful play immediately in a rainy, foggy, and miserable game to open the 3-game set. Hiroki Kuroda put the Yanks in a 2-0 hole immediately in the 1st inning by giving up a 2-out walk, followed promptly by a 2-run homer by Mike Moustakas which hit the foul pole. After that Kuroda grinded through 5.1 innings of work, only giving up 3 runs, but yet again the offense was non-existent. Felipe Paulino, just as he had done weeks ago, completely shut down the Yankees and had them eating out of his hand. In fact, the Yankees had one of their usual bases loaded and no out situations, and yet again failed to get a run in off it.
Manager Joe Girardi helped seal it for the Royals by bringing Freddy Garcia out of the bullpen in the 6th inning and his batting-practice quality array of pitches gave up a 2-run bomb to Jeff Francoeur for a 5-0 lead. The Royals would go on to win 6-0 and put the Yankees season record at .500 and on the way to the AL East basement. Ineffective as a starter, Freddy Garcia is also proving to be useless out of the bullpen as well and his $4 million dollar contract the steal of the century.
Rumors swirled before the next game that the Yankees held a team meeting to discuss important issues such as why they suck so much lately. In addition, reports in the media were that the Steinbrenner family had interest in testing the waters of selling the franchise, due to the recent big money the sale of the Dodgers organization raked in. Yankees top brass and management denied both stories and it up to Phil Hughes to stop the never-ending avalanche of losing.
The Yankees right-hander was up to the task as he continues to turn his tide this season and his love-handles was able to limit the Royals to 2 runs in his 6 innings of work, which included 7 strikeouts. Cano finally got the Yankees on the board in the 4th inning with a solo shot off of Luke Hochevar. An inning later the Yankees had one of their usual bases loaded and nobody out situations, but shockingly, instead of flushing the opportunity down the toilet, the Yankees got the weird idea of using it to score runs (perhaps the idea a result of the brainstorming from the rumored team meeting). Derek Jeter singled in a run and Curtis Granderson followed that up with a RBI groundout. The Yankees took a rare lead at 3-2 and Girardi pieced the bullpen together the rest of the way. Tension was high in the bottom of the 9th as Rafael Soriano was on the hill with two outs and the Royals with the tying run on 3rd base, but Alicides Escobar grounded out and the Yanks had won their first game in seemingly forever.
With the remembrance of victory fresh in their minds, the Yankees set out to do it again in the final game against the Royals. Royals youngster Will Smith took the mound, and with his family in attendance, the Yankees offense properly embarrassed him.
Curtis Granderson jumped on Smith in the 1st inning for a solo homerun, and then a few batters later Alex Rodriguez repeated the power feat with a 2-run shot to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. A-Rod woke up from his season long slumber and added another homerun in the 3rd inning, a 421 foot bomb to left-center which put the Yanks ahead 5-0. That was more than enough for Andy Pettitte as he went 7 strong innings and only gave up two measly solo homers in his third start of the season.
It was a 8-3 victory for the Yankees and the tweaking of Rodriguez's swing by hitting coach Kevin Long seemed to have paid off. More good news for the Yankees, both Brett Gardner and David Robertson were cleared to report to Tampa to begin their road to recovery from their DL stints.
The rest of the club takes their 23-21 record out west to prepare to battle the Oakland A's. Hopefully they remember the benefit of hitting when they have bases loaded....
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