Yankees lose a tight one on a disputed call

The New York Yankees were defeated by the Kansas City Royals by the score of 5-4 on Wednesday night. Bartolo Colon started for the Yankees and wasn’t very good. He allowed a couple of homeruns although one of them should of only been a double. Hector Noesi pitched very well in relief of Colon. Derek Jeter continued his hot hitting with another multi-hit game.
Colon pitched five innings giving up five runs on seven hits. He walked two and struck out four. Noesi pitched three innings giving up one hit, walking one and striking out one. Colon took the loss seeing his record fall to 8-7 on the season. It looks like he isn’t the same pitcher he was early on, maybe he is running out of gas.

Jeter had four hits, Curtis Granderson had three hits an RBI and a walk and Mark Teixeira had a walk. Robinson Cano had a hit, RBI and a walk, Nick Swisher had a hit, RBI and two walks and Andruw Jones had a walk. Russell Martin had a hit and an RBI. Granderson and Jeter had doubles, Granderson and Martin each had a homerun. The Yankees were 1-10 with runners in scoring position and they left 11 men on base. Jeter was caught stealing and picked off.

Granderson hit a solo homerun in the first inning to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. In the third Swisher had an RBI single making it 2-0. The Royals scored four runs in the bottom of the third. Alex Gordon hit a three run homerun and Billy Butler hit a solo homerun. The Butler homerun was controversial, it was reviewed but the problem was the rules that the umpires gave in the beginning of the game weren’t followed on the homerun. The ball hit the second fence and should have been a double but they said it didn’t need to clear both fences. The rule is that it does need to clear both but unless Joe Girardi protested it right there, you can’t protest the game. The Royals had a 4-2 lead. Melky Cabrera tripled and Butler walked before Eric Hosmer hit into a force out scoring a run. The Yankees cut the lead to 5-3 in the sixth on a Martin solo homerun. They had their chances in the seventh with first and second no outs but couldn’t do anything and in the ninth with the bases loaded but couldn’t do anymore then a sac fly. The final score was 5-4 and although the umpire cost the Yankees they had plenty of chances to score more runs.

The Yankees won two out of three in the series. The Yankees remain in first place ½ a game ahead of the Red Sox, one game in the loss column. The Yankees will play in Minnesota for the next four games beginning on Thursday night. CC Sabathia will be the starter on Thursday for the Yankees against Brian Duensing. The Yankees are in the middle of a tight pennant race and it would be a shame if they lost out on it by one game. The umpires can make mistakes but when it is that they don’t know the rules that is hard to take. I also don’t agree on that you can only protest at the time of the call not after. The Yankees will have to move on and bounce back with their ace on the mound.