Thornton Ruins Phelps' Great Start in Finale Loss to Indians

During the course of a season, a team suffers many tough losses.

Usually, those defeats consist of close games that couldn't quite be finished, but sometimes a whole different kind of story emerges.

That is, when a starter's gem is ruined by a bad bullpen.

Unfortunately, that exact scenario played out for the Yankees tonight, with Matt Thornton and Jim Miller combining to give up seven earned runs in just two innings of work as the Yanks dropped a heartbreaker to the Indians, 9-3.

For the first 2/3 of the contest, things didn't look like they could get much better for the Bombers, who knocked Cleveland's T.J. House out after just 4.2 frames thanks to a 2-run homer from Zealous Wheeler and an RBI Single from Yangervis Solarte.

During that time, the Pinstripes also got 6 shutout innings from David Phelps, setting up what looked like an easy W heading into the bottom of the seventh.

Too bad that didn't happen.

To start off the turning-point at-bat, Phelps surrendered a pair of hits to Chris Dickerson and Roberto Perez, causing him to be removed. 

At that point, the desperate and worn out Yanks had nobody too reliable to put in, forcing them to go with the aforementioned Thornton, a veteran who not only misplayed what should've been a routine double play on the first guy he faced to load the bases but also gave up a game-tying triple to Asdrubel Cabrera, followed immediately by a Michael Brantley sac fly to cost the Bombers their lead.

And if things weren't already bad enough, Miller took the liberty of allowing another five members of the Tribe to circle the bases in the next frame, pretty much ending the contest, as the once full of promise Pinstripes now trailed by six.

To put it simply, the Yankees, now 46-45, should've won this one easily, but instead ran out of gas, something we should expect to happen throughout the year as long as their starters struggle to get past the sixth.