Yankees 5, Tigers 6: One Run Short (Again)

The Yankees were 13-16 in one run games coming into tonight's game. That's not good. They are 13-17 after tonight's game. That's slightly worse. It's probably a bit disingenuous to call tonight's game another one run loss, though. Without a bit of a meltdown by Jose Valverde, this game is a three run loss. It goes down in the books as another loss by one, because anything other than that would be stupid and wrong, but it's sort of unfair to think of it that way.

Apart from the halted rally in the ninth, it was another pretty forgettable game all around. Phil Hughes did that thing where he throws way too many pitches in one inning and kills any chance of pitching deep into the game, and made a couple big mistakes to Miguel Cabrera. Big mistakes, little mistakes, it doesn't really matter. Cabrera will punish any and all mistakes if given the chance. He's getting to the point where he should almost be off-limits to pitch to. Maybe it isn't exactly the Bonds zone, but it's something similar.

If you can get past the 40 pitch inning and the two mistakes to Cabrera, which the Yankees obviously couldn't because they lost, it wasn't the worst performance from Hughes. He, along with the seemingly the entire bullpen, was victimized by ground balls with eyes all night. Credit to the Tigers, when they got people on base with those grounders, they made them count. Brennan Boesch hits a grounder single up the middle, Jhonny Peralta drives him in. Andy Dirks and Austin Jackson reach base and Cabrera crushes one to the wall. It's annoying when those grounders have eyes, but having them cashed in with extra base hits is more than bad luck.

The Yankees did have a little bit of offense themselves, mostly in the form of Eric Chavez. The now most of the time third baseman went 2-4 with an opposite field two-run home run that accounted for the only runs until the seventh. Rick Porcello turned in a good start, holding the Yankees to only the home run and an RBI single over 6.2 innings. Chavez got the ninth inning rally started with a single up the middle and was brought in with an Ichiro Suzuki single. Russell Martin plated another with a double in the corner, but Ichiro was held at third on the play. Probably the right call, but it was still costly as Curtis Granderson popped out to end it. And of course Valverde celebrated. Say and do whatever you want about that.

Was there anything else? Oh yeah, don't pitch to Miguel Cabrera. They're going to do it anyway, so can the pitchers at least be careful? No more stuff like this and this. If they fall behind in the count, the unintentional intentional walk wouldn't be the worst thing. Certainly a better option that the unintentional fastball turning into an intentional Cabrera home run.

Box Score. Math Class.

Play of the Game: Eric Chavez's home run in the fourth (+22.3).

CC Sabathia goes tomorrow against Anibal Sanchez. Sanchez was traded with Omar Infante from the Marlins to the Tigers. The Marlins made another trade with the Tigers about five years ago. We should laugh and throw things at the Marlins for that. Only heavy things, though. That trade was really bad and I'm going to blame them for tonight's loss.