Burnett laments inability to keep score tied

All the Yankees are looking for from A.J. Burnett are signs that he can become a useful starter next month in the postseason.

How many positives actually came out of his seven-inning performance in the Yankees' 4-3 loss to Buck Showalter's Orioles Monday afternoon at Yankee Stadium depends on who you ask.

Manager Joe Girardi called Burnett's performance "a good step forward," but the righthander himself was too frustrated with himself to take a glass-half-full view of this outing.

Burnett (10-13) allowed four runs, seven hits and four walks, but what bothered him most was going 0-for-2 in what he referred to as "shutdown innings."

By Burnett's definition, those are the innings immediately after your team either ties the score or takes the lead. Twice the Yankees tied the score - in the fourth and sixth innings - but Burnett responded each time by letting the Orioles immediately go ahead.

Making it all the more frustrating is that Burnett was one out away from a scoreless inning both times. Brian Roberts notched two-out RBI singles off him in the fifth and seventh innings.

"I take pride in shutdown innings . . . You want to get guys back in as soon as possible," Burnett said. "It's unfortunate."

Girardi praised Burnett for pitching well with runners on base, something he had to do in every inning but the first. But all the baserunners eventually caught up with him.

Roberts lined a 2-and-0 fastball to leftfield to drive in Cesar Izturis from second base in the fifth. He lined a 2-and-1 curveball through the right side of the infield to drive in Corey Patterson from second with what proved to be the winning run in the seventh. Each time, Roberts tried to draw a throw by heading for second and was retired to end the inning, but the damage was done.

"You've got to be able to put up a zero every once in a while after your team scores," Burnett said.

On this day, scoring runs didn't come easy against Brian Matusz (8-12) and three relievers. Matusz limited the Yankees to three runs, five hits and two walks in six innings. Matt Albers, Jim Johnson and Koji Uehara combined to close the game with three hitless innings.

Alex Rodriguez, in his second game back from the disabled list, went 1-for-2 with a solo home run off the back wall of the Orioles' bullpen in left-centerfield and a sacrifice fly. The two RBIs gave him 100 for the season, making him the only player in major-league history to reach triple-digits in RBIs in 14 seasons.

But aside from Rodriguez, the Yankees struggled to produce runs, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. That was Robinson Cano's bloop single to left over a drawn-in infield that tied the score at 3 in the sixth.

Girardi said he wished the Yankees had scored more runs for Burnett so a loss wouldn't spoil what the manager viewed as a positive start. But to Burnett, the lack of run support only reinforced the importance of coming through after the Yankees tied the score.

In response to nearly every question after the game, Burnett found a way to work his failure in what he called shutdown innings into the answer.

"I've said it six times and I'm sorry for repeating myself," he said. "But nothing else happened . . . I'll look at the positives tomorrow. I'm a little upset about everything else."

From the Yankees' perspective, another positive out of Burnett's outing was that he didn't implode in any inning, despite all the baserunners, and managed to make it through seven innings. That's viewed as a positive, considering Burnett entered the game with a 6-12 record and 6.25 ERA in 1162/3 innings in his previous 21 starts.

So although the afternoon wasn't a success in the standings or in Burnett's head, almost everyone else in the Yankees' clubhouse viewed it as such.

Said Derek Jeter, "I thought it was a step in the right direction."