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Everyone is to blame for this loss tonight. The offense, defense, pitching, concession stands, and parking lot attendants all performed poorly tonight in some fashion. The Yankees lose 6-2 in 12 innings, fail to sweep the Diamondbacks, and ruin my Whacking Day Simpsons reference.
There are some bright spots in this game though. Phil Hughes is surprisingly one of them. Hughes went seven innings tonight, giving up six hits and two earned runs via the dinger, while walking none and striking out six. Despite the home runs, this was one of the better performances that we've seen from Phil. His pitches were moving well. It's pretty clear he's going to continue to give up home runs every now and then. If he can limit them to solo shots and give us innings, he's still very serviceable.
Another bright spot was the bullpen. They managed to keep the Yankees in the game long enough to come back, until the 12th inning mind you. The combination of Boone Logan and Joba Chamberlain provided relief for the 8th and 9th. Once the game went beyond the 9th, David Robertson pitched a scoreless 10th. While our primary bullpen relief did their job well tonight, long man David Phelps struggled. Giving up lead off doubles in both innings of relief is not a good way to win over a starting pitcher job on this team. He escaped it in the 11th and did not in the 12th.
Do not put all the blame of this loss on Phelps though. The fact that the Yankees' offense was 3 for 14 with RISP tonight most certainly did not help matters. In the bottom of the 8th, the Yankees had bases loaded and one out with their two best hitters coming to the plate in Robinson Cano & Kevin Youkilis. While Robbie did provide the first home run of the night in the 6th, he struck out swinging on a ball that hit his foot. Youk then followed up with a K of his own. Francisco Cervelli came through with a game tying home run to left field to send the game into overtime. Francisco Cervelli also made history tonight with two catcher interference errors. History. With a question mark.
The Yankees had another chance to win in the bottom of the 11th inning off of Arizona reliever and back-up flood sandbag Heath Bell. With Boesch on 2nd and Ichiro on 1st with two outs, Eduardo Nunez hit a line drive that just didn't drop down soon enough to be a game winning single. It's a game of inches and it was just not in the Yankees favor tonight. Take heed that the Yankees pitching held up tonight. Be a tad concerned that the Yankees offense still needs a little help verses lefties.
The Yankees face the Blue Jays tomorrow night in Toronto. Andy Pettitte will get the start against Brandon Morrow.
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