New York Yankees postgame notes from the Baltimore games

The New York Yankees ended their four game losing streak yesterday mainly because Phil Hughes pitched really bad. Hughes had a good assessment of his outing, he said “I can’t remember the last time I was as bad as that.” He couldn’t locate his fastball and his other pitches weren’t really working, he always gives up a lot of homeruns because he is a flyball pitcher and Yankee stadium but this was really bad. The questions are coming now of course because he was rushed back from injury to make an emergency start and then rushed in this start a couple of days. He was pitching really well in spring training and then suffered the back injury. He and the Yankees say he is fine, just not executing. He did say he was better in Detroit which he was and he didn’t think he was that bad until that fifth inning in Detroit. I actually thought he was pitching pretty well in Detroit and then may have ran out of steam, this one was bad though. He is also a notoriously slow starter, April is by far the worst month of his career. 
The Yankees had Francisco Cervelli playing second and Robinson Cano playing short in the last game. They said they knew that could happen and it wasn’t a surprise. Girardi said he told all of them this was going to happen, that he pinch hit Brennan Boesch for Jayson Nix and with the injuries there was nothing else he could do. Cano had played short in the minors in 2002 but nothing but second in the majors.

Phelps was a huge bright spot for the Yankees but Girardi said it is way too early to talk about making a switch in the rotation. He said Phil had a good year last year and Nova has only made one start.

Cervelli said that they have to work on fastball command with Hughes, he said that is all it is is execution. The Yankees have lost eight of their past 13 regular season games to the Orioles and seven of their past 10 at home to the Orioles. They have had a lot of trouble with them lately but they did beat them in the ALDS last year although it took all five games. Ryan Flaherty hit the first homerun by a Yankees opponent at Yankee Stadium this year.

Travis Hafner has three homeruns in ten games which is his fewest to that number since 2009. Cano has four straight multi-hit games where he is 11-19 with eight RBI.

Friday night the big topic was the triple play the Yankees turned. It was their first since 2010 in Oakland. Ironically CC Sabathia was also the pitcher in that game, this one was unique though as it was the first time in history a triple play like that was turned. It was a line drive to Cano that he trapped, he threw to second for the force, then the ball was thrown to Youkilis who tagged out the runner in a run down and then threw to Lyle Overbay who got that runner in a rundown and threw to second for the third out. It was crazy, but happened really quick and the throws by the Yankees were great. The base running by the Orioles was not good at all on that and they just looked stunned when it was all over.

It was the Yankees second triple play since 1969 and first in the Bronx since 1968. That game was also weird because Adam Jones dropped a fly ball that allowed three runs to score and made the difference in the game. He is a great center fielder and I don’t think you will see that again.