Pen Beats a Tribe Called Less

I will not untuck before it's time.

Fans of the Cleveland Indians had their hopes up when the team burst out of the gate with a 27-21 record and led the AL Central from May 2 to May 28. But after splitting the first 100 games, the Tribe entered Sunday's action with the Yankees having lost 21 of their last 26 games and plummeted to 14.5 games behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.

The teams split the first two games of the series with Swisher & Soriano saving Sabathia's start (I've been waiting days to say that....if Dan Rather said it, he'd whistle your ear right off) for the win on Friday and then the Yankees hitters let down Hiroki Kuroda, who was excellent again after a shaky first inning, in Saturday's defeat.

Sunday afternoon's rubber game of the series was all about the Yankees' bullpen after Sweaty Freddy Garcia couldn't make it out of the 5th inning for the second straight start. The Yankees built a 3-0 lead against starter Ubaldo Jimenez  on RBI singles by Nick Swisher and Ichiro Suzuki, sandwiched around a Derek Jeter run producing ground out in the 2nd inning,

But after seeing leads slip away in a three game series sweep at the hands of the Chicago White Sox, manager Joe Girardi was not going to let the finale of the six game road trip get away when Garcia ran aground in the 5th.

Garcia had worked out of a pair of jams leading up to his final inning, but the Indians stranded five men on base, three of them in scoring position.  Garcia retired the first two hitters in the 5th, but gave up a double to Jason Kipnis, hit Asdrubel Cabrera,  and walked Shin-Soo Choo to load the bases.

Catcher Carlos Santana had flied out to right in the same situation back in the 3rd inning, but this time singled to center to for a pair of runs and sent Garcia to the showers. Lefty Boone Logan got left-handed hitter Michael Brantley to ground out to end the threat.

Curtis Granderson gave the Yankees an insurance run in the 6th, when he belted his 200th career home run off of lefty reliever Tony Sipp. It was the Grandy man's 33rd home run of the season and RBI number 74.

Logan retired the side in order in the 7th before he exited when Kipnis reached on a out-single in the 8th. David Robertson picked up the final two outs of the inning and left in the 8th after he retired two batters and allowed a single to Brantley.

Closer Rafael Soriano induced an inning ending fly out from Matt LaPorta, before he worked the 9th inning for his 33 save. The victory didn't come without a scary moment, however, when Kipnis hit a comebacker that got a piece of Soriano's glove and bare hand (he wasn't sure after the game which it hit first).  Soriano was able to recover to throw Kipnis out at first and said after the game that he felt fine. Hopefully that will still be the case on Monday.

Notes

Ironically, a day after the passing of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the Indians honored former astronaut and US Senator John Glenn for the 50th anniversary of Glenn's orbit of earth. The 91-year old threw out the first pitch (underhanded) for a strike.

Nick Swisher continued his torrid August with three hits and an RBI. He's now hitting .336 for the month with five HR, 19 RBI, and seven doubles. He narrowly missed a home run when he hit the base of the right field wall and settled for a double.