Hours after learning Joba Chamberlain was being sent to Dr. James Andrews to have his bothersome right arm examined, the team searched the sweltering Texas air for some thing to combat BD – bat dysfunction.
By the time Richie Sexson found it with an eighth-inning grand slam it wasn’t enough because the Yankees couldn’t solve neophyte lefty Matt Harrison earlier in the game.
Harrison, who has been in the big leagues less than a month, made the Yankees bats look as soft as tomato skin.
Combined with a second straight sub-par effort from Andy Pettitte, the early slumber resulted in an 8-6 defeat in front of 34,473 at Rangers Ballpark, where the game-time temperature was 93 degrees but 8 degrees cooler than Monday night.
Since the AL East-leading Rays and AL wild card-leading Red Sox won, the Yankees slipped to 6½ games behind the Rays and 3½ back of the Red Sox.
After getting spanked for nine runs and 11 hits in 5 innings by the Angels in his previous outing, Pettitte gave up five runs and six hits in five frames and fell to 12-9.
Harrison, 22, improved to 3-2 in his sixth big league start. In 6 frames he allowed two runs and five hits.
Sexson’s 15th career grand slam was hit off lefty C.J. Wilson in the eighth and reduced the deficit to 8-6.
Each bench was warned by plate umpire Alfonso Marquez in the home eighth after Jose Veras brushed Josh Hamilton’s vest with two outs and the bases empty. Alex Rodriguez was drilled twice and Melky Cabrera took one off the toe earlier in the game.
The Yankees missed a chance to pull close in the seventh when they loaded the bases with one out but scored only once, when Johnny Damon walked with the bases loaded. Derek Jeter, who entered the game in an 8-for-36 (.222) slump, lined out to second with the bases juiced to end the rally that cut the Rangers’ lead to 5-2.
Hamilton upped his MLB-best RBI total to 108 with a two-run homer, his 27th, in the first. The Rangers added solo runs in the second, fourth and the sixth against Pettitte.
Harrison used the double play ground ball to escape trouble in the third when Jeter banged into an inning-ending 5-3 double play and Rodriguez negated Bobby Abreu’s leadoff single in the fourth by hitting into a 5-4-3 double play.