Game 60 - Yanks Leave Boston With Tail Between Their Legs

Brutal.  Absolutely brutal loss for the Yankees, as they were swept out of Boston in a 4-3 defeat.  The Yanks led 3-1 going into the bottom of the 8th.  CC Sabathia had cruised through the first 7 innings, only giving up a solo shot to the mysteriously better Big Sloppy Ortiz up to that point, when he came out for the 8th.  That's when the wheels came flying off the bus.  

The bottom of the 8th started with Nick Green lacing a hanging changeup into left, Yoda Pedroia weaseling out a walk and JD Drew lining a single up the middle to load the bases before Joe Girardi finally pulled CC.  Alfredo Aceves came in and surrendered the lead on 2 dinky hits (he was absolutely squeezed by the ump on a 2-2 pitch to crybaby Youkilis) and a sacrifice fly.  Papelbum hammered the final nail in the Yanks coffin with a 1-2-3 ninth for the ballgame.  

Somewhere off in the distance, all the "Joba to the bullpen" troglodytes are beating their drums.  Joe Girardi is getting raked over the coals for his decisions.  Unfortunately, that's not the true reason the Yanks lost tonight's game.  CC did tire in the 8th and the bullpen did cough up the lead, but the offense, once again, cost the Yanks a second night in a row.  Facing Brad Penny and his 5.85 ERA, they allowed him to escape one jam after another as he threw 6 shutout innings.  After last night's unexplainable 2-16 with runners in scoring position, the Yanks followed that up with another comatose-like 1-10 performance.  They had a man on 2nd with no outs in the first 2 innings and left them stranded.  For a second straight night, Nick Swisher inserted his noggin up his derriere, once again running into out after the ball was caught in front of him.  Are you kidding me?  This is little league stuff.  

Has anyone seen Robinson Cano?  This guy is just God-awful with runners in scoring position and an instant out when he's in that situation with 2 out.  He left 3 more men on in scoring position.  For the season, he's 11-40 with RISP and 2 out for a .220 batting average.  My poor wife has been listening to me about Cano's failures for 3 years now.  Digging further into Cano's statistics, before tonight's game, I discovered he hits .242 against starters and .403 against relievers.  This would be the last guy, outside of the rarely used Angel Berroa, I would ever want to see at the plate with the game on the line.

Girardi should seriously consider dropping Cano deep in the lineup and giving Swisher a day or two to think about his base running blunders.  As for his use of CC and the bullpen, it's hard to second guess him.  CC only had 106 pitches going into the 8th.   If anything, maybe Girardi should have broken the mold of saving your best reliever for the 9th, but if he brought Mariano Rivera during the 8th to get out of jam and then someone else lost the game in the 9th, he would get killed publicly.  

So Boston is now 8-0 against the Yanks and now lead them by 2 games in the standings.  Fortunately for the Yanks, they don't see Boston again till August.  Yankee announcer, Kenny Singleton brought up a good point on tonight's telecast.  The Sox are tough to beat at home, but they are a below average team on the road and also hit 40 points less away from home.  I'm looking forward to the Sox next road trip.

Yankees Record:  34-26

Blown Games:  6