Yankees Pen Does It's Best O's Imitation

photo courtesy of Yahoo Sports

The Orioles came into the start of last night's Yankees series with just three wins. Not that they hadn't had leads in many games. It's just that arguably the league's worst bullpen (Kansas City might argue that) had coughed up almost every lead they had. They nearly did it again last night...unfortunately, for the Yankees, Joe Girardi's bullpen was worse.

Phil Hughes making his first start since his wonderous Oakland performance battled his way through five-plus innings and left with a 2-1 lead. Then the Yankees played gift giver and were in a 5-2 hole before you could say..well, um, "there goes the lead".

Boone Logan replaced Hughes with two out s in the 6th and quickly walked fellow lefty Luke Scott. David Robertson came on and did his best Brian Bruney impression. What's that you say? Good one year, bad the next. Albeit without the weight loss.

Robertson hit Ty Wiggington and then surrendered back to back singles Rhyne Hughes and Nolan Reimold (who named these people?) to put the Yankees in a 4-2 hole. The O's added a big insurance run in the 8th when Cesar Izturis drove in his third run of the game after a Derek Jeter error.

The O's pen and defense did their part to get the Yankees back in the game, but a 9th inning rally fell short. Alfredo Simon, recalled earlier in the day, picked up his first major league save, but it wasn't without some nail biting.

After a one out walk to Nick Swisher, pinch-hitter Nick Johnson drew his 19th walk of the season. Jeter struck out, but Julio Lugo misplayed Brett Gardner's grounder for a run scoring error. Mark Teixeira quickly followed with an RBI single to right to give Alex Rodriguez a chance to tie the game with a base hit. He nearly did, but Lugo was positioned perfectly up the middle to field his grounder and force Teixeira at second base.

Notes

Nick Johnson switched from uni number 26 to 36. It's the number he wore his first time around in the Bronx.

Phil Hughes had walked in a run in the 2nd inning and the Yankees pen was already up in warming. But the right-hander got Adam Jones to bounce into an inning ending double play to stop the threat.