Hughes gotta be kidding me

             Before returning to New York from their west coast trip, the Yankees made a little stop in Detroit to check out next year's models and face the disappointing Tigers who were 3 games under .500.



             All the signs were there for the Yankees to be able to get the first game under their belt easily as the Tigers had to call up Casey Crosby to make his first career start in place of Doug Fister, who was recently sent to the DL. It didn't take the Yanks long to welcome the kid to the big leagues as by the end of the 2nd inning they had put 5 runs on the board, mainly due to a grand slam by former-Tiger Curtis Granderson.



             CC Sabathia made the start for the Yankees and had a workman's type outing: going 7 innings and giving up 3 earned runs on 8 hits with 5 strikeouts for his 7th victory of 2012. In the 9th inning, with a runner on and the game well in hand for the Yankees, Alex Rodriguez added a homerun to push the score to 9-4 which is what the final score ended at. The Tigers started to threaten in the bottom of the inning, so Girardi was forced to bring out Rafael Soriano to get the last two outs for his 7th save of the season.



             Off from his first road win of the season against Oakland, Hiroki Kuroda faced off against Rick Porcello and for most of the game, the two were locked in a pitcher's duel. The new David Ortiz, in terms of Yankee-killing, Miguel Cabrera, broke the tie in the 4th with a massive solo bomb to center. There was plenty of tension in the game as both Joe Girardi and hitting coach Kevin Long were tossed for arguing the strike zone. After the Yankees had scratched and clawed to tie the game at 2-2 in the 8th inning, there was Cabrera to yet again hit another solo bomb to center, this time off of Cory Wade, to make it 3-2 Tigers.



            The Yankees kept on coming back as they managed a bases loaded walk-in run (although a hit would've actually been nice, but godforbid) against their tormenting dancing-idiot foe Jose Valverde, who blew the save. Only getting the single run in the 9th ending up costing the Yankees the game as the Tigers had a 4-3 walk-off in the bottom of the frame thanks for a game-winning sac-fly from Omir Santos.



            On most occasions when a rubber game has to be decided upon the pitching of Phil Hughes and 2011 MVP and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, you hand the series to the Tigers, but on this day Hughes had other things in mind. Bouncing back from an awful start a few days ago against Anaheim, Hughes shocked everyone by throwing a complete game for the first time in his career and the only run he allowed was a solo shot by Prince ("Need to showboat after hitting one") Fielder.



          Just like the Angels game, the offense gave Hughes some runs early via the home run by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, who launched one 455 feet to left!!



        Hughes refused to choke away the lead this time and only gave up the one run on 4 hits with 8 strikeouts. Justin Verlander was handed his third loss in a row as a consecutive Cy Young Award looks bleak at this point. With a grueling road trip that included the Angels and the Tigers, two teams that made the biggest moves in the AL this offseason, the Yankees managed to go a pleasant 6-3 and saw signs of waking up from the likes of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, yet the 29-24 club continues to be collectively putrid with runners in scoring position....

The saving grace

             Whereas Oakland is a west coast destination the Yankees thrive in, Anaheim has been a place where they go to be massacred. Since 1996 overall, and specifically starting in 2002, Mike Scioscia and his Angels club have been slaughtering the Yanks on both coasts.



             Although the Yanks took 2 out of 3 earlier in the season with the Stadium home opener, the weather is warmer now, Pujols has started hitting finally, and the Angels were throwing their top three starters: Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, and Ervin Santana. With Jared Weaver already had tossed a no-hitter this season and is one who usually shuts the Yankees down, things weren't looking too good with the onset. That is, of course, until the Yankees caught a break. Weaver injured his back while on the mound and had to be removed from the game. Then with the help a number of unlikely errors by the Angels, the Yanks were able to grab an early 3-0 lead in the 1st and things were really looking up!!



             Unfortunately for the Yankees, Phil Hughes wasn't able to grasp hold of the gift he was given and managed to flush the lead down the toilet by surrendering 4 runs in the bottom of the 1st to swing it in favor of the Angels 4-3. Hughes was atrocious and was charged with 7 earned runs in 5.1 innings of work. With his past few starts being more productive against weaker-hitting teams, the up and down of Hughes is turning him into the team's next A.J. Burnett.



             To the offense's credit, the Yankee bats battled back all night and even tied the score 8-8 thanks to a huge hit by Russell Martin. In the top of the 9th, Derek Jeter had a chance to put the Yanks ahead with the bases loaded and 2 outs, but anytime the bases are loaded this season, the Yanks can't get a hit, and this night was no different as Jeter grounded out. Cory Wade was inserted in the bottom of the 9th and he served up the 9-8 game-winning homer to Mark Trumbo, who would go on to kill the Yankees all series with homers in each game.



             Trying to bounce back after a tough loss, the Yankees sent their crafty veteran Andy Pettitte to the mound against Angels hard-thrower Dan Haren. Pettitte had been marvelous in his return in 2012, but on this night he had the worst performance of all his starts. Both Trumbo and Pujols went deep on Pettitte as he was responsible for 5 runs in his 7 innings of work. Dan Haren was untouchable with only giving up one measly run in 7 innings while striking out 7 Yankees. In the top of the 9th, the Yanks did load the bases with a 5-1 deficit and Cano at the plate to be able to tie the game with one swing, but Cano struck out pathetically on just three pitches to end the game.



               Look at another miserable stay in Anaheim and the prospect of getting swept by the Angels, the Yankees turned to the young man who had been winning important games for the past two seasons, Ivan Nova. Just like the first game, the Yankees grabbed a 5-1 lead thanks to huge blasts by Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano off of Ervin Santana, who had lost his 5 previous starts against the bombers. But then just like Hughes in the first game, Nova blew the lead immediately after and the Angels had tied the game at 5-5 (highlighted by yet another Mark Trumbo homer). One of the biggest unsung heroes of 2012 for the Yankees, lefthanded hitting Raul Ibanez, managed a triple off the wall in center off lefty-reliever Hisanori Takahashi. With Ibanez at 3rd with only one out, amazingly, the Yankees executed a sacrifice fly at the hands of Nick Swisher to take the 6-5 lead.



           Nova was able to settle down and paced his way through 6.2 innings of work and witnessed Cory Wade making amends for the other night by striking out Howie Kendrick in a huge spot with the tying run on 3rd. Wade came back in the 8th to breeze through the next three hitters, which set up the drama in the 9th. Rafael Soriano, in his biggest save situation of the season so far since taking the job, was up against (of course) Yankee-killing Mark Trumbo with the tying run at 2nd base and two outs. Luckily, Soriano was able to break Trumbo's bat which cased a weak flyout to left, giving Soriano the green-light to untuck his shirt for the 6-5 victory.



          With a 4-2 west coast swing under their belt and on their way to Detroit with a 27-23 record, the flight couldn't have been all that good as news of reliever David Robertson's return has been pushed back to mid-June the earliest thanks to a new rib cage injury. To combat this unfortunate development, Brian Cashman picked up a real nobody off the scrap heap in Ryota Igarashi, because the Yankees always have success with Japanese pitchers.....

No hitting allowed in Toronto

             After shooting par in Baltimore by splitting a two-game set, the Yankees headed up to Toronto to see the Blue Jays for the first time this season, and apparently the Yanks' equipment trainer got busted for trying to bring their bats across the border.



              The Yankees scored a pathetic total of two runs in their two games against the Blue Jays and now find themselves in 4th place in the AL East. The only saving grace for the Yankees is that the team under them is still the Boston Red Sox. In the first game Yankees starter Hiroki Kuroda was completely steamrolled as he surrendered 7 runs in 5 innings of work, including 3 homers. In a large hole, Yankee hitters had no shot against the hard-throwing Kyle Drabek who went 7 solid innings and only gave up 1 earned run. Clay Rapada gave up another run later on and Toronto took the first game 8-1.



            The second and final game wasn't as pitiful, but it was in the neighborhood. This time around the Yankees got a decent start from Phi; Hughes, who went 5.1 innings and only gave up 2 runs from a homer by Jose Bautista. For the third night in a row, an opposing starting pitcher completely shut the Yankees down as Drew Hutchison went 6 innings and only gave up 1 run, an RBI double by Cano in the 1st innings which scored Granderson. Cory Wade increased the deficit by giving up another 2-run homer, this time to J.P. Arencibia, who also hit one the night before. The Yanks went away quietly in the 4-1 loss as the offense continues it's slumber this week.

  

              At 20-18 the Yankees limp home to open up the first segment of interleague play this season and hope Andy Pettitte's second start can snap their 3-game losing streak....