MLB: Yanks Downed By Red Sox
Red Sox beat the Yanks to knock them out of first place
Disappointment is what one can read on Joe Girardi’s face on Friday night’s game the Yanks played against Boston Red Sox. There were the second, fourth and fifth inning the Boston brought the lead to win the meeting that knocked the Yankees out of the first place in AL East. The Yanks showed its best in the seventh inning when led with 4-0, but not enough for the final result though. Andy Pettitte couldn’t do more for the team and seemed ineffective in his second start after being activated from the disabled list. Finally, Red Sox edged New York 10-8 on the Yankee Stadium to win a very important game.
“It’s not what you want to see. But I believe in Andy and I believe he’ll bounce back in his next start,” Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi would say after the game. There were Jed Lowrie and Bill Hall who brought a three-run homer each. Lowrie hit it off Pettitte to go 4 for 4 and set a career record for hits, while Hall added it against Jonathan Albaladejo handing Josh Beckett a 10-1 cushion in the fifth inning. The Yankees were coming after another two consecutive defeats, the last one in front of Tampa Bay on Tuesday night. They Rays beat also Seattle 5-3. Now as frustration accumulated, Pettitte looked pretty disappointed too with last night’s poor performance. “The frustrating part is being knocked out when we needed a good outing. I really couldn’t get any kind of rhythm,” he said. However, Alex Rodriguez led the Yanks with two home runs, giving him 610 to pass Sammy Sosa for sixth place on the career list, while Mark Teixeira also rallied twice as the Yanks went deep a season record six times, now downed a half-game behind Tampa Bay.
Both of the two along with Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson homered off Beckett. This entered 0-2 with an 11.17 ERA in four starts against the same Yanks this season. “Early on, he was really good. I kind of thought he pitched to the scoreboard most of the night, but that last one, it’s like, OK, it’s time to make a change,” Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona said right after. Pettitte, who gave up seven runs, dropped behind several hitters and produced trouble putting others away. He also has a season high of 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings. “We’re just not used to seeing it. He’s had such a great season. He’s battling back. This is only his second start back. So, we know Andy’s going out there giving it his best. It just wasn’t his night,” is what Teixeira would say of Pettitte, while Beckett (6-5), who gave up five runs and seven hits, and went 6 2/3 innings said that he’d rather pitch the way he did than pitch great and lose.
“I started leaving balls up. The sixth inning didn’t bother me as much as the seventh — the walk in front of the home run,” Beckett added.11
