The Yankees suddenly look older than the cast of “Golden Girls.”
In the course of a 3-1 loss to the Tigers last night at Yankee Stadium in Johnny Damon’s return with the Tigers, Alex Rodriguez (35) left the game with a calf injury, Derek Jeter (36) hit into a game-ending double play and Javier Vazquez (34) needed 106 pitches to get through four innings.
Pass the Geritol!
For the second straight game, a pitcher the Yankees hadn’t seen before stifled their bats. Last night, it was Max Scherzer who put a spell on the Bombers’ bat rack in his first appearance against the team. Scherzer gave up two hits and no runs in six innings.
The loss, along with the Rays’ win over the Rangers, dropped the Yankees into a tie for first place.
“We’re not swinging the bats like we’d like to,” said Jeter, whose 6-4-3 double play ended the game. “Sometimes you give credit to pitchers, they’re going to make some pitches, but we’ve got to find ways to score some runs.”
The Yankees were one inning away from getting shut out in back-to-back games for the first time since 1999, but a wild Tigers closer Jose Valverde walked in a run in the ninth.
Rodriguez left the game in the fifth inning with tightness in his left calf. Nick Swisher was right behind him, taking a seat in the sixth with tightness in his right elbow. No tests were scheduled for either player.
But add that on to the sprained ankle that kept Lance Berkman out of last night’s game, and manager Joe Girardi could be staring at a short bench tonight when they face Justin Verlander.
Swisher described his injury as “wear and tear.” Rodriguez was not available to the media after the game. Girardi said the third baseman came to him after he flied out in the fourth and told him the leg was bothering him.
“Would I be a little bit surprised if he played [today]? Yes, but not completely,” Girardi said. “We’ve just got to see how he is. When a guy comes out, you don’t expect him to play the next day. Maybe he’ll be available to us as a DH. I can’t really tell you.”
The injuries hindered the Yankees as they attempted a late-inning comeback. It didn’t really matter if Ruth and Gehrig showed up, though. The Yankees bats have gone into hibernation. Scherzer’s gem followed Bryan Bullington’s two-hit shutout Sunday in Kansas City when he gave up two hits and no runs.
Javier Vazquez had another shaky outing, but he limited the Tigers to two runs on five hits. Ryan Raburn’s second-inning home run made it 2-0′ and Miguel Cabrera tacked on a run with a solo homer off Joba Chamberlain in the ninth.
The velocity was low for Vazquez again, but the bigger problem was his command on off-speed pitches, particularly his changeup.
“I don’t think I threw one strike with it,” Vazquez said. “My changeup was terrible all day.”
After cruising through the first few months of the season, the Yankees have hit some major turbulence in August. They are now 6-9 in the month, and need to win the next three games to win their first series of the month.
The Yankees are in a stretch of the schedule where it looked like they could fatten up the win column and extend their lead over the Rays. Instead, they lost two games to the Royals over the weekend and opened up this series with a loss.
Against the Tigers, they went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, and stranded a runner in scoring position in each of the last four innings. Valverde loaded the bases in the ninth, and walked Brett Gardner to force in the Yankees’ lone run. That brought Jeter to the plate with one out, but he grounded out to short.
“We had a shot in the ninth inning to win the game and we just didn’t get it done,” Girardi said.