ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – How many Yankee arms does it take to mute a celebration and keep cases of champagne corked? Last night the answer was two – Edwar Ramirez and Brian Bruney.
Poised to clinch the AL wild-card spot in the postseason that opens next week and celebrate coming back from the dead in late May, the Yankees trusted Ramirez with a five-run lead to start the sixth inning after Kei Igawa shockingly provided five scoreless frames filling in for Roger Clemens.
By the time the sixth was finished, Ramirez had walked two and given up an RBI double and Bruney had issued two walks and allowed a grand slam to somebody named Jorge Velandia, an ex-Met scrub who hadn’t been in the big leagues in four years.
Jeff Karstens served a leadoff homer to former Yankees catching prospect Dioner Navarro that carried the Devil Rays to a 7-6 victory in 10 innings witnessed by a Tropicana Field crowd of 24,503. However, the game was lost in the dreadful sixth by one hurler (Ramirez) who is blowing a chance at being on the postseason roster and another (Bruney) whose season has five more games remaining.
“I pitched like [junk] tonight,” Bruney said.
Nobody who saw the putrid performance (three runs, one hit, two walks in one-third of an inning) would disagree.
“The way I have been pitching doesn’t satisfy me or the people watching me,” ” Bruney said.
Without Joba Chamberlain (Joba Rules) and Luis Vizcaino (tired arm), Torre’s options were limited, although he likely wouldn’t have used two of his top three relievers with a five-run bulge in the sixth. He would have in the 10th, but the game wasn’t lost then.
“We had plenty of opportunities,” said Johnny Damon, who tied a career high by going 5-for-5. “We walked [11] and you can’t do that.”
Since the Tigers won, the Yankees’ magic number to clinch a wild-card spot – their first since 1997 – remains at one. They fell to three games back of the AL East-leading Red Sox, whose magic number over the Yankees is three.
Derek Jeter, who reached the 200-hit mark for the sixth time and third straight year, provided a 1-0 lead in the first and Alex Rodriguez dropped jaws with a monstrous grand slam in the third that hit a catwalk 115 feet above the left-field playing surface. It was Rodriguez’s 53rd homer (first since Sept. 9) and hiked his MLB-leading RBI total to 151. That 5-0 bulge should have been enough.
“He got us to the right-handed hitters,” Torre said of Igawa, who allowed two hits, walked five and fanned two. “We should have been able to take it home from there.”
Instead, the Yankees had to battle back from a 6-5 deficit in the eighth when Melky Cabrera’s fly to left scored Bronson Sardinha and tied the score, 6-6.
Working in a rare back-to-back situations, Kyle Farnsworth was perfect in the eighth, and Jose Veras, who quietly is sneaking into the picture while Ramirez fades away, threw a scoreless ninth.
Without his top two relievers not named Mariano Rivera, and Chris Britton and Ron Villone already used, Torre turned to Karstens. Three pitches later the Devil Rays were celebrating.
“I can’t remember an easy time doing it,” Jeter said. “Regardless of who you play, they don’t like to see you celebrate.”