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The Yankees have struggled mightily over the past week, losing five straight games and giving up a ton of runs, and tonight was no different. In his second start of the season, Chris Capuano didn't make it past the fifth inning, and the offense failed to get anything going resulting in the Yankees' sixth straight loss and a sweep for Texas.
As has been the case all season, bad defense got the Yankees into trouble early. In the first inning, Shin-Soo Choo reached due to Jose Pirela bobbling a routine ground ball. Prince Fielder then smacked a double to score the run. The Yankees might have had a chance to throw Choo out at the plate, but Pirela's relay throw was off course and although Brian McCann dove for it, he missed the ball and Capuano ended up fielding it. Pirela's error was the team's 33rd of the season, good for third most in the AL.
The Rangers immediately compensated with an error of their own. Brett Gardner reached on an error by Elvis Andrus, but ended up being caught trying to steal third on a single by Chase Headley. The Yankees went on to score their only runs of the game this inning after Alex Rodriguez lined one to center, and Brian McCann beat the shift to bring Headley and A-Rod home.
Back to work in the second inning, Capuano quickly lost the Yankees lead, giving up a two-run home run to Adam Rosales which left the park right above Gardner's head. Capuano settled down a bit after that, but in the fifth inning he allowed back to back singles to Fielder and Adrian Beltre and Joe Girardi opted to pull him in favor of Chasen Shreve. Capuano ended the night with four strikeouts, two earned runs and no walks. Shreve had a nice outing, pitching one and a third clean innings while allowing just one walk. It wasn't until the top of the seventh that the Rangers scored the rest of their runs off of Justin Wilson. Delino DeShields hit a leadoff triple over Chris Young's head in center field, which was followed by an RBI double by Choo and an RBI single by Fielder.
Even though they lost, there are a couple of positives to take away from this game. Garrett Jones finished the night 2-for-3 with a walk, and made a nice diving catch. Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller are still really good, both pitching clean innings. Even David Carpenter pitched an inning without giving up a run. There's also one potentially concerning thing: McCann was replaced by John Ryan Murphy in the ninth inning after he appeared to be dealing with some kind of cramp in his right calf/foot.
The Royals come into town tomorrow and Nathan Eovaldi will face them for the first time in his career. He'll be going up against Jeremy Guthrie at 1:05 EST. Maybe they just need a fresh series to turn things around.