Yankees Bobble One Away

Baseball is about chances. Taking advantage of those that come along. The Yankees didn't make it happen yesterday and the Angels took advantage of sloppy play by the home team to pull out a 2-1 win 13 innings.

Howie Kendrick lead off the 13th win a line double to the left wall off of Luis Vizcaino (4-2). Jose Molina failed to put the sacrifice bunt on and quickly fell behind 0-2. With the count evened up, Jorge Posada made a curious choice of pitch location. Molina was obviously trying to hit the ball to the right side to move Kendrick to 3rd. So why was Posada set up outside? Vizcaino did his job hitting the target, but Molina stuck the bat and hit a sharp grounder to the right side. Miguel Cairo made a diving stab, but bobbled and lost the ball as he got up. His hurried flip was well behind Vizcaino and rolled to the Yankees dugout, allowing Kendrick to score easily from 3rd. Cairo was given a double error on the play, his 2nd and 3rd of the day, and boosted the team total to 5 on the afternoon.

The Yankees had a chance to come back against Francisco Rodriguez (2-2) in the bottom of the 13th, but this game was about failed chances. With one out, Cairo attempted to redeem himself by ripping a single to left and stealing 2nd. A high fastball eluded Molina and went to the backstop for a passed ball, allowing Cairo to reach 3rd. Johnny Damon walked to put runners on the corners with just one out.

But Melky Cabrera was clearly overmatched against K-Rod and struck out for the 5th time on one of the right-hander's tough breaking pitches. Joe Torre may have been second guessing himself after the game for choosing not to put on a squeeze play, safety or otherwise. That left it up to the Captain, but Jeter grounded out to Kendrick to send the fans, who had arrived early for old-timers day, home unsatisfied.

The Yankees took a 1-o lead off Angels' starter John Lackey on 2nd inning doubles by Hideki Matsui and Bobby Abreu. But the Angels quickly tied it up against Yankees' starter Roger Clemens when Garret Anderson doubled and came home on a couple of ground outs, Jeff Mathis picking up the RBI.

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Clemens went 8 innings for the 2nd straight start. In those 16 innings, he's allowed just 7 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, and has struck out 7.

Lackey struck out a career high 11 batters. The Yankees struck out 14 times in all.

Alex Rodriguez, who went 0-4 with a walk and 3 strikeouts, announced after the game that he would be attending Tuesday's All-Star game in San Francisco and hoped to play.

After Friday's 14-9 scorefest, the two teams went just 16-90 and left 33 men on base.