Game 80 Wrap-Up: BOS 8 NYY 5

(Courtesy of the AP)

At this rate, I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to keep writing these.  The Yankees are so horrible to watch these days, even when you don't get the chance to watch them often.  I watched as much as I could of last night's series finale against Boston on ESPN, but there was just nothing entertaining about the game.  Chalk it up as another series loss and another week spent hovering around .500.

Game Notes:

- Chase Whitley's crash back to reality started early in this one.  The Red Sox got 1 run in the 2nd thanks to a double by Yankee murderer Mike Napoli and a ribbie single by Stephen Drew.  They got 3 in the 3rd when Big Sloppi crushed a fastball for a home run to take a 4-0 lead.

- It took a Boston error to set the Yankees up in the bottom of the 3rd, but it was a lot of hard work on their part to get a run in.  Ichiro stole second base, moved to third on Brett Gardner's 10-pitch at-bat, and scored on a Derek Jeter single that came on the 11th pitch of his.  That's big time manufacturing.

- The Yanks did it the easy way in the 4th.  Mark Teixeira yoked an 0-1 changeup that John Lackey put on a tee for him into the right field corner for his 15th home run of the season, and Carlos Beltran hit his 8th on a curveball to get the deficit down to 1.

- With a rested 'pen, Joe had a quick hook and yanked Whitley after a 4-pitch walk to Jackie Bradley Jr. to start the 5th.  That backfired as Shawn Kelley and David Huff allowed 3 runs to score.  Why Kelley and Huff were the first 2 men out of the 'pen in that situation, I'll never know.

- The offense hung tough with 2 more runs of their own in the bottom of the 5th on a Brett Gardner RBI double and Jacoby Ellsbury RBI groundout, but they blew a big chance to pull closer when Beltran got thrown out at the plate in the 6th.  They'd never create another good scoring chance.


F*ck Yeahs:

- Beltran: 3-4, 1 2B, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 LOB.  For the first time in about a week he looked like a strong, competent hitter.  It'd be nice if that was the start of something and not an exception to a new rule.

Oh Nos:

- Whitley: 4+ IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 1 K.  Whatever you want to call this outing by Whitley, you can't call it good.  He was very hittable, he struggled to put hitters away, and failed to finish off innings when he got 2 outs.  Now that the book on him is growing, teams are starting to really figure him out.

- Kelley: 0.0 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 0 K.  Faced 3 batters and all 3 of them got on base.  He didn't throw a strike until his 7th pitch.  I don't know if his back is still bothering him, but something is up with Kelley.  He doesn't look like the same guy he was in April.

Next Up:

The Yanks wrap up their 15-game AL East stretch with a 3-game home series against the basement-dwelling Rays.  Chris Archer and David Phelps kick things off tonight.