New York Yankees Lose to Baltimore Orioles; Series Even as They Head to the Bronx

The New York Yankees had their chances to take a commanding 2-0 lead against the Baltimore Orioles, but lost 3-2 Monday evening as they head to Yankee Stadium for the first of possibly three games starting Wednesday night.

New York wasted a vintage Andy Pettitte post season start in which the lefty veteran went seven innings and gave up three runs on seven hits struck out five and walked only one in the loss. Pettitte retired the first eight Orioles before allowing a two out two run single by Chris Davis. Afterwards, Pettitte admitted he got too much of the plate and that pitch definitely was a mistake that probably cost the Yankees a victory.  Mark Reynolds would break the tie with an RBI single in the sixth for the winning run.

The Bombers had rookie lefty Wei-Yin Chen on the ropes early, but as this has been the continued theme all year New York left 10 men on base and were only 2-for-8 with RISP. The Yankees once again squandered multiple opportunities to score leaving two on in the third, the bases loaded in the fourth, one in the sixth, two again in the seventh and one on in the eighth. Chen would get out of a couple of the jams and go 6 1/3 innings giving up two runs on eight hits with three strikeouts and one walk. The Orioles three-headed relief monster of Darren O'Day, Brian Matusz and Josh Johnson closed out the game for the final 2 2/3 innings.

Ichiro Suzuki created the Yankees first run to start the game scoring on Robinson Cano's double by eluding the tag by catcher Matt Wieters twice with a high flying acrobatic dive into home. All television replay angles showed Suzuki was safe on the play.Derek Jeter drove in the Yankees second run in the seventh with a single to left scoring Eduardo Nunez from second.

The series now heads to the Bronx for the next three games if necessary with Hiroki Kuroda matching up against Miguel Gonzalez in Wednesday night's game three scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET at the Stadium.


Game Notes

Each team's shortstop and first baseman made errors on the night which neither team could capitalize on for
any runs.

After a good opening night Nick Swisher went 0-for-4 with one strikeout and three LOB. Alex Rodriguez was 1-for-5 including two strikeouts and three LOB.

Mark Teixeira looks like his swing is coming back going 2-for-4, but no one was ever on base in his at bats to drive in any runs.

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Dan Benton

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