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The Yankees won a wet one against the Twins after sitting through a one hour and 13 minutes rain delay in the bottom of the fourth inning. The game really should have been called at multiple points during the game, especially since they have two days to play a doubleheader, but the umpires were determined to play all nine.
New York only managed one hit off the lowly Scott Diamond, and six hits overall, but did have six walks and were able to scratch out two runs. In the bottom of the fifth inning Luis Cruz singled and Chris Stewart, with Joe Girardi playing for one run, dropped a bunt to move Cruz to second. Brett Gardner then singled to shallow left field and Cruz somehow wasn't thrown out to score the first run of the game. Robinson Cano singled to bring in another run and take an, apparently, commanding lead over the inept Twins.
In the sixth inning Vernon Wells hit a double that got away from Aaron Hicks and it looked like an easy triple, but, to the surprise of everyone, Hicks unleashed a throw from the right field warning track that nailed him at third base on the fly. I have a hard time being angry when a player throws a ball further than the length of a football field and it never touches the ground. It kind of brought back memories of Greg Golson's throw from right field to nail Carl Crawford at third base to end a game in 2010.
Hiroki Kuroda gave up five hits, a walk and struck out four in four innings before the rain delay and that looked like it was going to be it for him, but he actually came back out for the fifth inning, giving up another hit, walk and collecting a fifth strikeout before calling it a night. I'll just leave this here:
Hiroki Kuroda now leads the AL in ERA. No, really. Not an all-star. #killthewin.
— Brian Kenny (@MrBrianKenny) July 13, 2013
The bullpen took over in the sixth inning with Preston Claiborne pitching a perfect inning, but then giving up two hits in his second inning of work. He was pulled for Boone Logan and the game got interesting after Chris Stewart didn't catch a ball again and proceeded to throw it away when trying to prevent a runner from almost scoring, but Logan managed to strike out the side to get out of the inning. David Robertson struck out two and was probably the first Yankees pitcher that didn't have to pitch in the rain. Mariano Rivera collected a strike out and his 30th save of the season to bring the game to a close.
What the offense also managed: Gardner walked and stole a base (!), Ichiro Suzuki walked, Cano walked twice (!), Wells walked, and Lyle Overbay had two hits and a walk.