LOS ANGELES — The third-inning ditch Andy Pettitte put the Yankees in with two throwing errors on bunt plays wasn’t deep enough to bury his teammates.
For all the times Pettitte has guided the Yankees to victory when the batters didn’t hit, the veteran lefty was rewarded last night.
Down four runs entering the ninth against Dodger closer Jonathan Broxton, the Bombers tied the score 6-6 with one amazing at-bat after another. While Pettitte watched, Robinson Cano’s two-run homer in the 10th off lefty George Sherrill carried the Yankees to an 8-6 Yankees win as 56,000 watched at Dodger Stadium.
The thrilling come-from-behind victory enabled the Yankees to take two out of three from Joe Torre’s Dodgers, and it also kept the Yankees’ AL East lead at two games over the Red Sox.
Cano, who was 0-for-11 against lefty George Sherrill, hit a 0-1 pitch the other way to left-center.
“I was looking for a pitch to drive,” Cano said. “After the first pitch I had to stay back and go the other way. I was right on time.”
But it was the Yankees’ four-run, ninth-inning rally that led to Cano’s heroics.
Trailing 6-2, Cano doubled home Alex Rodriguez, and Chad Huffman drove in Jorge Posada and Curtis Granderson with a two-run, bases-loaded single, cutting the Dodgers’ lead to 6-5. With Huffman on first and Granderson on third, Broxton went to a full count before Colin Curtis hit a grounder to first baseman James Loney.
For some reason Loney tagged first and then threw home, but Granderson slid in before the tag and tied the score, 6-6.
Francisco Cervelli batted for Joba Chamberlain after Broxton intentionally walked Derek Jeter (3-for-4). Broxton’s 48th pitch of the inning resulted in an inning-ending grounder to Loney.
Rodriguez’s 11th homer — his second in three games and the 594th of his career — cut the Dodgers’ lead to 5-2 in the sixth.
“What a game,” Rodriguez said. “That’s as good a win as we have had in a long time. You can’t say enough about the young kids. Give those kids a lot of credit. They looked like seasoned veterans. They put together amazing at-bats.”
The victory made a winner out of Mariano Rivera, who worked the ninth and 10th. After being two outs away from a 3-3 trip the Yankees flew home with a 4-2 ledger and a much more enjoying day off today to look forward to.
Pettitte, who gave up five runs in five innings largely because of his shoddy fielding, was glad to be let off the hook.
“I felt I gave the game to them,” said Pettitte, who helped put his team in a 5-0 hole. “Giving them three runs is hard to swallow.”
When you see pitchers working on fielding plays during spring training on the back diamonds, the drills are known as PFP. That’s short for Pitcher’s Fielding Plays. Last night, Pettitte added a letter to the abbreviation: PFPU.
Pettitte wasn’t great throwing to the plate, and he was awful tossing to the bases. His butchering of two sacrifice bunt plays helped the Dodgers take a 5-0 lead after three innings.
In his previous six outings Pettitte went at least seven innings. Last night’s five-inning stint tied his shortest of the season. He has done that three times. Pettitte allowed five runs (four earned), six hits, walked three (one intentional) and fanned five.