Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Greene, Thornton Collapse in Sixth; Rangers Beat Yankees in Opener 4-2

Going into tonight's opener against the Rangers, there was no reason to believe that the Yankees would lose.

The then 50-47 team, coming off yesterday's walk-off, had just swept the Reds to begin the homestand, making 39-59 Texas look like an easy club to beat.

Still, due to one bad inning, the Yanks did fall in tough-to-watch fashion, with Shane Greene and Matt Thornton collapsing in the top of the sixth as the Rangers won easily 4-2.

During this one's first five frames, Greene committed three errors (yes, three), but thanks to five strikeouts and a few big plays from the offense he and the Bombers did have a 2-1 lead.

However, with two outs and nobody on in the aforementioned sixth, the Rangers began a ridiculous rally, causing a sac fly from Carlos Beltran and a solo home run from Jacoby Ellsbury to become worthless. 

Facing the red-hot Jake Smolinski with a 3-2 count, Greene allowed a routine single up the middle, followed immediately by a walk of Jim Adduci and a game tying knock just over the glove of Zealous Wheeler from the struggling Geovany Soto. 

After that disaster, and considering that he was at 113 pitches, Bombers Manager Joe Girardi finally decided to take the rookie out, replacing him with the rarely-reliable Matt Thornton.

Big mistake.

Entering the contest with two on, Thornton surrendered two more RBI hits to Rougner Odor and Shin-Soo Choo, putting Greene in line for the loss and eventually handing Miles Mikolas (7 1/3 IP, 2 ER) the W.

Subsequently, as expected, Thornton was removed without retiring anyone, capping off the action of one of the Pinstripes' most frustrating losses of the year, as Texas came into this one 4-24 in their last 28 and New York 4-1 in their last 5.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)