Phil Hughes didn’t do badly when he pitched, but back problems forced him out of the game after 3+ innings, in which he went 3+, 1 R (HR by Yankee killer Delmon Young), 3 H, 3 walks and 1 K.
The problem is, listening to the Mike and Mike ESPN show today, they suggested that the way the Yanks bats were going lately, a perfect game by Verlander was possible.
You know what? Outside of Ichiro, he may have had it after 8 innings.
Verlander didn’t strike out many, but he didn’t have to. Girardi hoped to win by getting people on and using their speed. Ichiro, Gardner and Nunez
—all basestealers— were in the lineup. A-Rod and Swisher were benched.
Young hit the HR off Hughes in the 4th to put the Tigers up 1-0. The way the Yanks have been hitting, it could have been 100-0.
After a walk, Hughes’ stiff back put him out of the game.
Phelps went 1, 1 R (unearned), 2 H, 0 walks and 0 K. An error (Chavez) SB and double by Miggy Cabrera in the fifth made it 2-0 Tigers.
Rapada 2/3, 0 r, 0 h 1 walk, 0 k.
Eppley 2/3, 0 r, 1 h, 1 walk, 1 K.
Logan 2 1/3, 0 r, 1 H, 0 walks, 1 K.
Joba 1/3 IP, 0 r, 0 H, 0 walks, 0 K.
2 runs on 7 hits. Once again, Yankee pitching did well.
Once again, Yankees hitting sucked.
Nunez did HR off of Verlander in the 9th.
The Yanks got hits by Teix and Cano (breaking a huge 0-for skid) to get Ibanez to the plate after Nunez’ HR.
But Ibanez whiffed.
The Yanks got just one run on five hits. That run and three of the hits came in the ninth inning.
The bats were dead again.
You can’t blame the pitching.
CC goes tomorrow, as the Yanks try to avoid the sweep.
But they more or less are dead…
Unless you can revive Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle from the great beyond.
Girardi starts a line up with speed & there’s no stolen base attempts! ?Granted Ichiro is the only one of the 3 speed guys who got on base. Saturday night he led of the 11th with a single, no attempt to steal 2nd base! Why? Does Girardi make that call or is Ichiro on his own? Going into the playoffs everyone questioned the pitching. It’s been very good while the bats are awful. Extremely hard to watch.x