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An agonizingly long night eventually led to a Yankees loss on Monday. The team wasted no such time getting the loss out of the way on Tuesday. Cole Hamels absolutely dominated the Yankees, throwing just 86 pitches over seven shutout innings.
CC Sabathia turned in a better effort than his pitching line indicated, but it just wasn't enough for this offense. Adrian Beltre put him in an early hole with a two-run homer in the top of the first, immediately putting the Yankees behind by a score of 2-0.
To his credit, Sabathia kept the margin right there through seven, holding the powerful Rangers offense scoreless for six innings. Unfortunately, the offense did nothing against Hamels, who gave up just six hits in his seven masterful frames. To add injury to insult, the Yankees lost their best hitter in the very first inning. Carlos Beltran roped a long hit but was held to first base since he seemed to hurt his hamstring. Rob Refsnyder entered in his place, and the offense remained quiet for pretty much the duration of the night. The only bright side came from the report after the game that it was a cramp and he should just be day-to-day.
Meanwhile, Texas blew the game open in the eighth. A hit by pitch, an infield single, and a bad hop on a possible double play grounder put another run on the board. An RBI double from Prince Fielder drove his old Brewers teammate CC from the game. Anthony Swarzak allowed all the inherited baserunners to score and Texas finished the inning leading 7-0. Sabathia was docked for six runs in seven-plus frames, but it really was quite fine over the first seven. Oh well.
The Yankees did at least snap the shutout in the bottom of the eighth. Jacoby Ellsbury doubled off Jake Diekman and Alex Rodriguez brought him home with a sacrifice fly. That was it for the offense! New call-up Conor Mullee pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts, but Shawn Tolleson threw a scoreless frame of his own to wrap it up.
So this homestand is going great already! The Yankees are back to two games under .500. Masahiro Tanaka will try to stem the tide when he takes the mound tomorrow night against Nick Martinez. First pitch is at 7:05pm.