MINNEAPOLIS — There was no indication the Twins planted wood magnets in the balls Javier Vazquez threw to them last night.
Nor was there proof the Twins knew when Vazquez was coming with breaking balls.
Nevertheless, every time Vazquez didn’t locate an off-speed pitch the Twins punished it.
“The off-speed stuff, they hit pretty good,” Vazquez said after Yankees’ 8-2 loss to the Twins in front of 39,087 at Target Field.
Across the first three innings when the Twins scored three runs, even the outs were loud. Had it not been for Mark Teixeira turning Alexis Casilla’s smash into a double play in the second, Vazquez may not have escaped the inning in which the Twins scored twice.
“I left a couple of hangers,” said Vazquez, who gave up five runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings and fell to 3-5.
“The first couple of innings hurt me more than the home run to [Jason] Kubel.”
The first of Kubel’s two homers (he also crushed a three-run homer off Chad Gaudin) upped the Twins’ lead to 5-2 in the sixth.
Kubel’s blast was the Twins’ first homer since May 17 and halted a steak of 349 plate appearances by the Twins without a homer.
“He left some breaking balls up and they didn’t miss them,” manager Joe Girardi said of Vazquez.
“His command wasn’t as good as the last two starts.”
The early 3-0 ditch was too deep for a Yankees’ lineup that is struggling at the plate.
In the last six games, the Yankees have scored 15 runs and are 9-for-52 (.173) with runners in scoring position.
When Robinson Cano singled Brett Gardner home from second in the fourth it stopped a 0-for-16 Yankees slide in the clutch.
“We had some hits but we weren’t able to get the big inning,” said Girardi, who watched Alex Rodriguez bang into a 6-3 double play with runners at the corners and one out against Nick Blackburn (6-1) in the first. “I am not sure what pressing means, but there is frustration.
“We are not getting it done. I don’t see a real pattern but we are not impacting the baseball at times.”
The lineup should get a boost tonight when center fielder Curtis Granderson returns from the disabled list.
And Jorge Posada isn’t that far away from coming back from a broken right foot. Finally, the miserable Indians open a four-game Memorial Day weekend series tonight at Yankee Stadium.
Vazquez wasn’t the only Yankees hurler to struggle.
Chan Ho Park’s problems since returning from the DL continued. He faced four batters, three reached and two scored when Gaudin gave up Kubel’s second homer in the seventh that put the game out of reach for the Men Without Bats.
“He is making mistakes with some of his breaking stuff,” Girardi said of Park, who has given up seven runs and 11 hits in 4 2/3 innings since recovering from a right hamstring problem. “Before he was hurt he was OK. Since he came back he has struggled a bit. We have to get him back on track.”
That’s where the Yankees believed Vazquez was after two solid starts. One bad outing doesn’t mean the veteran right-hander is headed for the 1-4 start he experienced.
Nevertheless, he has lost several ticks off the fastball and that puts a premium on not hitting every bat barrel with his off-speed stuff.