Yankees can't solve KC's Bullington, lose 1-0

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A.J. Burnett did what he often hasn't in his career. When faced with early-inning problems, fight his way through them - much like CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and even Phil Hughes - and give the Yankees a quality start.

The righthander did that and more Sunday afternoon but was simply outpitched by Bryan Bullington in a 1-0 loss to the Royals in front of 26,012 at Kauffman Stadium.

The loss dropped the Yankees to 3-3 on this road trip and just one game ahead of Tampa for the AL East lead and left manager Joe Girardi vexed for several reasons.

One was wasting one of Burnett's best outings of the year and another was the Yankees' continued struggles against pitchers they're seeing for the first time. And there was the team's overall performance on this trip, which ended with the Yankees, who split a two-game series in Texas and four games here, committing three errors Sunday.

"It's not what we wanted and we need to play better," Girardi said. "We need to go home and play well and start winning series. Tying series is not good enough."

Bullington, 29, making just his seventh career start, and second this season, was perfect through 4 1/3 innings before Robinson Cano singled in the fifth inning. Brett Gardner had the other hit, a one-out single in the sixth. Cano was erased on a double-pay ball; Gardner was caught stealing.

Bullington (1-2) allowed two hits, struck out five and walked one in eight innings, with he and Burnett the main reason the game took a brisk 2 hours, 7 minutes.

Bullington, who earned his first big-league victory, wasn't doing anything exceptional. According to PitchFx, the righthander's fastball topped out at 94 mph and averaged a little less than 92 mph, and his breaking stuff wasn't particularly nasty.

It was, again, the Yankees looking lost against a pitcher they'd never before seen.

"I get tired of talking about it, I know that," Girardi said. "You look for the ball and you hit it, that's the bottom line. I know when you haven't seen a guy, you're not exactly sure what he's going to do to you, but we have a lot of good hitters in the lineup."

Joakim Soria pitched the ninth to earn his 33rd save and second of the series.

Burnett (9-10, 4.66) was brilliant after the first inning, in which he allowed two of his four hits and the only run. Burnett struck out six, walked three and was helped by three double plays.

"That's how it goes," Burnett said. "Bryan obviously kept us off balance today and pitched a heck of a game. That's basically the story. I gave up the one early and tried to keep any more from coming across . . . When he comes out and throws the ball like that, you just try and match it."

The game's only run was scored in the bottom of the first.

Willie Bloomquist singled with one out and stole second. Francisco Cervelli's throw sailed into centerfield, allowing Bloomquist to take third. Billy Butler made the error irrelevant by lining a single down the rightfield line, scoring Bloomquist to give the Royals a 1-0 lead.

Burnett hit Mike Aviles with a pitch to start the second and walked Mitch Maier. After falling in a 2-and-0 hole to Brayan Peña, pitching coach Dave Eiland came out for a talk. Burnett fought back to even the count, then induced a 4-6-3 double play and Burnett, unlike many of his outings when he's had early struggles, settled in and allowed no more damage.

"It was a big step forward for me," Burnett said. "Just mentally, mechanically and everything. I have to feed off of it."