Game 42 Wrap-Up: KC 6 NYY 0

(No caption needed.  Courtesy of The AP)

Staying above .500 and out of last place in the AL East was hanging in the balance last night in the Bronx.  It's a little strange to even be saying that 6 weeks into the season, but that's the way things have gone for the Yankees this year.  Poor performances aplenty, injuries galore, and a lack of timeliness both at the plate and on the mound have left the team in its current slump, and Joe finally decided it was time to juggle the lineup to try to help drag them out of it.  A good outing from Hiroki Kuroda would have been nice too, but I guess that would have been asking for too much.

Game Notes:

- A lot of Kuroda's stuff was up in the zone in the 1st inning, even the pitch he struck Eric Hosmer out with, and it quickly bit him in the ass when he left a 2-2 fastball right over the middle of the plate to Mike Moustakas.  28 pitches to get through the 1st, and a 2-0 deficit.

- Kuroda definitely didn't have his A-game again, and gave up another run in the 3rd, but the Yankee offense didn't do much to help him.  After loading the bases with 0 outs in the bottom of the 3rd, the trio of Cano (K looking), A-Rod (K swinging), and Ibanez (flyout) each failed to plate a single run.

- If you were keeping score at home on your RISP Fail Counter, that 0-fer threesome made it 6-64 with RISP.

(** Full Disclosure- After this happened, I flat out stopped paying attention to the Gameday feed and just watched the Ranger game.  That also turned out to be a poor decision, but whatever. **)

- He managed to hold the Royals at 3 for the remainder of his night, but it could hardly be called an effective outing for Kuroda.  To throw 103 pitches and only make it through 5.1 innings, and to allow 10 baserunners in the process, is not a good thing.  Seems like Kuroda is suffering from the same problem as Nova right now; every miss he has in the zone gets punished.

- Cody Eppley and Clay Rapada got a few outs in the 6th and 7th, and then Freddy Garcia came on.  He gave up a 2-run home run to Jeff Francoeur on a belt-high splitter right over the plate on his 2nd pitch, another run on a wild pitch in the 7th, and the rout was on.

- For the 2nd time this year, Felipe Paulino absolutely dominated the Yankee lineup.  He worked 6.2 clean innings, only walking 2 and striking out 8.  There isn't a single guy in the lineup right now who pitchers are concerned about facing and it shows.

- Final RISP Fally tally for the night: 0-13.  And the scary thought is, this game could have been a lot worse.  The Royals only went 1-12 with RISP themselves.


F*ck Yeahs:

- Alex Rodriguez: 2-4, 1 2B, 1 K, 3 LOB.  Congrats on the 500th career double, I guess.

Oh Nos:

- Raul Ibanez: 0-4, 1 K, 6 LOB.  You take the good with the bad with Raul.  Tonight was the bad.

- Derek Jeter: 1-5, 2 LOB.  His slide continues.  He's making contact, but not with the same pop he had in April.

- Nick Swisher: 0-4, 3 K, 1 LOB.  Yuck.

- Kuroda: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, L.  I keep waiting to see that trademark command he had in the NL.  I don't understand why that would go away from one league to another.

Next Up:

I think this is rock bottom.  No good starting pitching, no good relief pitching, and no good hitting in any situation.  The Yankees are last in the American League East, and they haven't shown any signs that they are breaking out of their slump.  If anything, they've played worse as the slump has gone on.  Phil Hughes takes the mound in the second game of this series tonight.  Here's hoping he throws a gem, because he's a fool if he's expecting much help from the offense.