Ouch! Yanks fall to Royals 12-1

It was one of those nights. The pitching didn’t work and most of all, the bats stayed dormant again.

Michael Pineda suffered his first defeat of the season. He was abandoned by his slider and was roughed up in 5.1 innings in which he allowed five runs on ten hits. Coming of a 16 K performance, this was the least that one would expect. But hey, no pitcher pitches perfect all season. In maybe four or five games they have their super stuff.and in some things do not work out they want but they work their way through. Last night wasn’t one of those for Michael Pineda. Games like this happen. Sure it is a tough loss, but a loss is a loss, no matter if you lose 12-1 or 2-1.

What worries me is the hitting. For the second game in a row, the bats went silent. Of course the Yankees faced a formidable pitcher in Chris Young. Young hasn’t been used as starting pitcher by the Royals before Edison Volquez had to serve a five game suspension. Young has a lot of experience as a starting pitcher though. So far, he has a microscopic ERA of 0.94 and he is keeping his opponents to a .113 batting average.

Like I wrote before, teams that turn hot will go cold at some time. It looks like the Yankees have reached that point.

The much heralded bullpen of the Yankees lost track last night. Except for Branden Pinder, every reliever gave up one run at least: Carpenter 1, Wilson 2 and Ramirez 4.

About the hitting. The Yankees were outhit 17-5. Five lousy hits of which Mark Teixeira got two. Like I wrote yesterday maybe it is time to shake up the lineup a bit.

In tonight’s game, Sabathia will face Danny Duffy, who has a similar ERA. I still see every game in which Sabathia starts as a calculated loss. If the bats stay silent again, perhaps you cannot blame him at all tonight.
At the start of the season I said that the Yankees were going nowhere. So far they have done a lot better than I expected. But if they continue to play like this, they will prove me right.

Believe me, I hope that I am wrong.