Yankees allow 10 two-out runs in 10-3 loss to Mariners
Photo credit: Getty Images | Relief pitcher Alfredo Aceves is removed from the game by manager Joe Girardi Sunday after hitting Josh Wilson with the bases loaded.
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SEATTLE - As the Yankees took the field in the second inning, the "F" showed up next to the Red Sox-Rangers game on the scoreboard in leftfield.
That game had gone final, with Boston's loss giving the Yankees the chance - inconceivable two weeks ago - to pull 8 1/2 games ahead of their rival.
But it didn't happen, as Joba Chamberlain got hit hard in a five-inning outing and the bullpen was even worse in a 10-3 loss to the Mariners Sunday.
All 10 Seattle runs were scored with two out as Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves and Chad Gaudin were unable to come up with the pitch needed to get out of the inning. "When you get 10 runs with two outs, you feel like you really had a good chance to win in a game you lose 10-3," Joe Girardi said.
Still, looking big-picture, taking three of four against the Mariners to start this 10-game trip, which continues Monday night in Oakland, and leaving town with a 7½-game lead in the division has to qualify as a success.
Less successful was Chamberlain's start. After three straight blistering starts, he has turned in three straight in which he's allowed four earned runs, a total of 12 in 16 innings.
Chamberlain gave up seven hits and three walks in his five innings. He left trailing only 4-3 but received little help from Aceves and Gaudin, who combined to give up five runs in the seventh. Seattle totaled 15 hits.
Chamberlain (8-3), originally scheduled to start Wednesday in Oakland but moved up to Sunday afternoon, isn't scheduled to start again until a week from Tuesday against the Rangers at the Stadium as the management of his innings continues.
"They're really not much different," he said, comparing his first three post-All-Star break starts with his last three. "Just a pitch here and there. Nothing really felt much different from the first three than the last three." But Girardi had a different perspective, saying he "didn't have a great slider today."
Offensively, the Yankees didn't get much done against Doug Fister (1-0), making only his second major-league start, though Derek Jeter had a historic day. He had three hits to break the record for most hits by a shortstop. Jeter has 2,675 hits as a shortstop, two more than Luis Aparicio, and 2,688 overall.
Jeter tied the record in the first and broke the record in the third. That hit, a double to right, drove in Ramiro Peña from first base to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. Nick Swisher's 20th homer - a two-run shot in the fourth over the 405-foot sign in center on a 3-and-0 pitch - put the Yankees ahead 3-2, but it was all downhill from there.
Chamberlain retired the first seven Mariners before his control trouble hurt him in the third. He walked Ryan Langerhans and gave up a single to Josh Wilson to put runners on first and third with one out. Ichiro Suzuki hit a soft liner to third, but after getting ahead of Russell Branyan 1-and-2, Chamberlain walked him to load the bases. Then he threw a hanging breaking ball on his first pitch to Jose Lopez, whose two-run double to leftfield gave Seattle a 2-1 lead.
"I felt in a good rhythm, then got to the stretch [in the third] and was drifting a little bit," Chamberlain said. "Things got going and I wasn't able to slow them down."
He got in another jam in the fifth as Branyan walked with one out and Lopez singled. Ken Griffey Jr. popped to short for the second out, but on an 0-and-2 pitch, Franklin Gutierrez lined a single up the middle to tie it at 3. Jack Hannahan's RBI single put the Mariners ahead.
"I thought he threw decent but he couldn't seem to get that last out," Girardi said. "We've talked about Joba before; when he's able to get out of those jams, that's when he does really well, and today, he wasn't able to do it."
