Rays pay for blunders

A day after hitching a ride on Derek Jeter's hit parade, the Yankees Sunday let two bollixed plays by Tampa Bay escort Robinson Cano around the bases for a 1-0 victory.

After Cano singled to lead off the seventh inning, well-intentioned but badly mangled defensive moves did the rest.

After running down a shallow fly by Jorge Posada, centerfielder B.J. Upton sailed his attempt to double off Cano far over Casey Kotchman's head and into the Yankees' dugout. That put Cano at third.

"I didn't rush it," said Upton, who made a one-handed basket catch and dropped down on his arm angle while throwing on the run. "I wouldn't have done anything different. Just a bad throw. If things don't get out of hand, who knows what would've happened?"

After Russell Martin grounded sharply to third for the second out, before the first pitch to Brett Gardner, James Shields tried to pick off Cano -- and with Cano clearly caught off third, Shields severely overthrew Sean Rodriguez. Trying to hit Rodriguez on the run, Shields threw the ball above and behind him, and the ball rolled to the tarp as Cano sashayed home.

Cano's hit was the last of four off Shields. But after Upton's goof, inferior defense seemed to have gotten into the Rays' bloodstream. "Great play," manager Joe Maddon said of Shields' attempted pickoff. "[Cano] is out. He's out from me to the dugout. But we just didn't make a good throw. Shields has picked off, I think, two guys that way this year. It was there. Normally, he makes a really good throw with that and he just did not this time, so I have no problem with that whatsoever."

Shields said he and Rodriguez had "sold it pretty well. Cano, I mean he was walking down toward home plate; I don't think he had any clue I was going over there. All I have to do is lob the ball over there and he's out, and I end up airmailing it. Ninety-nine out of 100 times I'm going to make that play, so I'm not going to think twice about it."

Cano conceded that he "was almost thrown out at third base, but sometimes it takes a mistake for you to win the game. I would have been sad if I was thrown out at third."

In the third, Upton nailed Eduardo Nuñez at the plate when he tried to score on Mark Teixeira's fly to medium center. Upton had two of the four hits off CC Sabathia but was erased from the bases when Sabathia picked him off first in the fourth and when he couldn't get back to first on Rodriguez's liner to rightfielder Andruw Jones in the seventh.

In addition, Rodriguez doubled to lead off the second but was thrown out trying to steal third for the inning's first out.

"They make two baserunning gaffes and get away with it," Maddon said. "We made baserunning gaffes, we do not. The run scores on an error. We should still be playing right now, possibly."