CHICAGO — Did someone play a prank on the Yankees and move Citi Field to Chicago?
The Yankees are having a grand old time during their rare, two-opponent, one-hotel visit to the Windy City. Just imagine if they actually were hitting.
The return of White Sox ace Chris Sale from the disabled list left them flirting more with history than with victory at U.S. Cellular Field. Sale retired the first 17 Yankees batters, and a ninth-inning Yankees rally fell short as they went down, 3-2, to Sale and three relievers, giving them three losses in four games, dropping them out of the American League East penthouse and wasting an excellent start (seven innings, two runs, five hits, one walk, eight strikeouts) from David Phelps.
In three games in Chicago, the Yankees have scored seven runs over 31 innings. They recorded just three hits Thursday, two of those in the ninth inning.
“We’ve [run] against three pretty good starting pitchers,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, referring to Sale and the Cubs’ Jason Hammel (Tuesday) and Jeff Samardzija (Wednesday). “But I know we’re capable of hitting better than this. You go through it as an offense. We’ve got to come out and score some runs tomorrow. Try to get some early and just keep tacking on.”
With pinch-runner Kelly Johnson representing the tying run on first base and two outs in the top of the ninth, Alfonso Soriano looked at a 3-2 pitch from White Sox closer Ronald Belisario that was up and in. Soriano calmly put his bat down to take the free pass, only for home-plate umpire Tim Woodring to ring him up and end the ballgame. On one laptop computer inside the visitors’ clubhouse, you could see the freeze frame of a stunned Soriano looking back at Woodring.
“Bad call,” a tranquil Soriano said. “Nothing you can do.”
With 195 runs scored on the season, the Yankees remain an underwhelming eighth in the AL. They hoped to rank considerably higher after committing nearly $300 million last winter to imports Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann.
Girardi correctly went with a virtually all right-handed lineup on this night; lefty batters are now 0-for-23 with two walks and 10 strikeouts against the southpaw Sale this season, as Ellsbury served as the Yankees’ lone such hitter and whiffed in all three matchups. Yet it obviously didn’t pay dividends, as Sale — on a tight leash after rehabilitating a left arm injury — allowed just one hit (Zoilo Almonte’s sixth-inning single) while walking none and striking out 10 in his six innings.
Ichiro Suzuki rode the pine even though the future Hall of Fame’s splits show that the lefty batter hits lefties (.331/.367/.419) better than righties (.314/.359/.412); the 40-year-old delivered a ninth-inning, pinch-hit single against Belisario and scored on Mark Teixeira’s two-out, two-run single.
With Beltran on the disabled list thanks to an ailing right elbow, and with the Yankees nearly done with interleague action — their three-game set at St. Louis beginning Monday will complete their season’s work at National League parks — Girardi said he plans to play Ichiro more often in light of his rebound from last year.
Here’s a vote for not overexposing Ichiro, who’s slashing .369/.406/.431 to climb back from last year’s dreadful .262/.297/.342. For finding the sweet spot between Ichiro’s age and his diverse skill set.
In Beltran’s absence, Girardi has five outfielders in Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, Ichiro, Soriano and Almonte, with the designated hitter role often filled by one of this quintet, too. Almonte deserves some opportunities, and just as important, Ichiro needs rest. Moreover, Ichiro’s bat, speed and defense provide Girardi with a nice late-inning weapon during the games he doesn’t start. He’s now 3-for-4 with a walk in five plate appearances as a pinch hitter.
Ichiro naturally doesn’t see it like that. “I can honestly say that when I was playing every day, compared to now when you don’t know when you’re going to play, now, it seems like my body is more under stress,” he said through his interpreter.
His 2014 success notwithstanding, there’s too much evidence to the contrary when you argue that Ichiro should be out there virtually every day. From 2011 through 2013 — the Mariners traded him to the Yankees in July 2012 — he put up a lackluster .273/.305/.356 line in 1,939 plate appearances.
“I can honestly say, last year was not a good year for me,” Ichiro said. “That being said, I don’t feel like I’m having a great year this year. I just feel like I’m playing normal.”
It’s normal “Prime Ichiro,” from 2001 through 2010. And the best way to keep that going is to ensure he gets his down time. No matter how much he dislikes it, and no matter how desperate the Yankees’ lineup looks at times like these.