Yankees Stunned by Sox

Saturday, June 2 - a day the Yankees would quickly like to forget. They lost a game, their 1st baseman, and their future hall of fame pitcher, all by 7:30 pm.

The Yankees blew 3 leads and dropped the 2nd game of the weekend series with Boston, 11-6. A Derek Jeter home run off of Joel Pineiro in the top of the 7th had given the good guys a 6-5, but a sub-par defensive effort would help sink them in the home half of the inning.

About the same time it was made official that Roger Clemens would not be making his scheduled start on Monday against the White Sox. Clemens had tweaked his right groin during his start for Scranton last week and now had what he described as a fatigued groin (A-Rod probably has one from that stripper too). But now back to the game.

Bobby Abreu turned a David Ortiz fly out into an inning opening double. Scott Proctor intentionally walked Manny Ramirez and then gave up an unintentional free pass to Kevin Youkillis. Mike Lowell hit a potential double play ball to Robinson Cano that could have easily crushed the Red Sox rally. But the whole game turned on a dime.

Cano made a poor throw to Jeter at 2nd, and in his haste to turn two, Jeter bounced his throw to 1st. In his attempt to come up with a scoop, Doug Mientkiewicz was left in a vulnerable position along the 1st base line. Lowell crashed into Mientkiewicz, his hip or thigh smacking the back of Mientkiewicz head, snapping it forward. As another run scored, Mientkiewicz lay face down in the dirt until Yankees' trainer Gene Monahan could get to him.

Though he never lost consciousness, Mientkiewicz was clearly dazed. Monahan used smelling salts to try to snap the fog, but he needed to be carted off the field. As it turned out, he'll be on the 15 day DL with a fracture bone in his wrist and a concussion.

A 2nd Jeter error on another potential DP ball helped lead to the final 3 runs of the inning.

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Both starting pitchers stunk out the joint, especially after a 28 minute rain delay. For the 3rd time this season, the Yankees smacked around Curt Schilling, but for the 2nd time, he got off the hook. His ERA is over 7.00 in 3 starts against the Bombers and 2.95 vs. the rest of the AL.

Mike Mussina didn't fare any better, blowing 1-0, 3-1, and 5-3 leads. He was knocked out of the game when he allowed back to back HRs to Lowell and Jason Varitek in the 6th.

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Cano and Lowell had a big time collision on the base paths. Cano fielded a DP ball and went to tag Lowell, who was running off of first. Lowell played fullback, knocking Cano over, but somehow Cano still bounced a throw to first to complete the twin killing.

After the game, Cano complained that Lowell threw an elbow and couldn't understand why a bigger deal wasn't made of it, in light of the much ballyhooed Pedroia-A-Rod incident.

"Of course (this was worse). He stopped and he threw an elbow."

In typical Joe Torre fashion he defended the opponent rather than his own player.

"You're in the (base) line, you're fair game. It was hard baseball. There was nothing dirty." In effect Torre threw A-Rod under the bus again.

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Kevin Youkillis' 23 game hitting streak came to end, as he went 0-2 with 3 walks.