ARLINGTON, Texas — On the night baseball’s most unpopular player barked about returning tomorrow at Yankee Stadium, the second-place finisher in that poll killed the Yankees.
Alex Rodriguez told the Yankees yesterday he wants to come off the disabled list and play for the first time this season tomorrow night.
Then A.J. Pierzynski, who is loathed throughout the game by players for his annoying personality and active mouth, drove in two of the Rangers’ three runs to back Matt Garza’s first start in a 3-1 victory before 42,360 at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
“It’s hard to let a left-handed hitter beat you right there,’’ Pettitte said of Pierzynski’s two-out, bases-empty homer to right on a 1-2 cutter that was supposed to be in the dirt but landed over the wall. Making it more debilitating was the Yankees tied the score, 1-1, in the sixth with a gift courtesy of Garza’s wild throw to first.
“It’s extremely frustrating,’’ Pettitte said, referring to getting beat by a lefty swinger even if Pierzynksi opened the night batting a healthy .360(9-for-25) against Pettitte and raised that to .393. “He is a pretty good hitter, but I feel like I should handle him.’’
Pierzynski hurt Pettitte in the first with a two-out single to right that scored Ian Kinsler with the Rangers’ initial run.
Outside of Garza’s wild toss to first after bobbling Brett Gardner’s leadoff grounder in the sixth — ruled a single and a two-base error — that allowed Gardner to reach third and score on Robinson Cano’s single, the right-hander sizzled in his Rangers debut.
Acquired from the Cubs on Monday, Garza held the soft Yankees lineup to a run and five singles in 7 1/3 innings.
“He has a good idea of what he’s doing,” said Lyle Overbay, who helped douse a first-inning rally by whiffing with runners at the corners and one out. “He usually makes a mistake here or there, but he didn’t make too many mistakes. When you’re down and away, throwing that slider for seven innings, it’s a good combination. If he doesn’t make mistakes, it makes it even tougher.
“We got him in the first inning, but he made pitches. I swung on a pitch that might have been ball four. It’s a different slider than he had thrown the previous two. I was a little more aggressive thinking fastball. That’s what he’s got. That’s why he’s so good, he can mix that slider with that fastball.’’
In that first inning, Gardner and Ichiro Suzuki led off with singles and Gardner stole third with one out. But Garza fanned Cano and Overbay and left two on by inducing Vernon Wells to hit a grounder to third.
“We have to take advantage with runners on because this is not an offense that explodes for big innings,’’ manager Joe Girardi said of the lineup that went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
Two runs and eight hits in six innings certainly isn’t terrible but it wasn’t good enough for a win, which is the only thing Pettitte was looking for.
“When you don’t win, you don’t take anything positive,’’ said Pettitte, who is 7-8. “We need wins right now. It’s a tough loss.’’
After coming back and winning against Rangers closer Joe Nathan in the ninth Tuesday night, the Yankees had another shot at the Stony Brook product in the ninth, but after giving up a two-out single to Wells, Nathan induced Eduardo Nunez to pop up to short to end it and post his 32nd save.
“We need to bounce back,’’ Girardi said about today’s matinee. “It’s a tough pitcher in [Derek] Holland and we have Hiro [Hiroki Kuroda]. Let’s see what happens.’’
Chances are good the Yankees offense will sputter because the last time Holland faced the Yankees he threw a two-hit shutout on June 27.