4th-Place Yankees Continue Slumping And Sliding Through May
NEW YORK (WFAN/AP) — CC Sabathia was in complete command, seeming to give the Yankees exactly what they needed at a time when they're struggling to score.
Then suddenly, the game got away from him.
The Cincinnati Reds rallied against the Yankees' ace in the seventh inning, turning a pair of solo home runs and three straight walks into a 5-2 victory Sunday that sent New York to its fifth loss in six games.
"I felt like I let the team down," Sabathia said.
But Sabathia did his part to keep New York in the game for the the Yankees' offense, which has been mostly absent during their skid. They've scored only 15 runs in their last six games, nine of which came on Friday and Saturday. That leaves six runs for the other four games, all losses.
The fourth-place Yankees are just 8-11 since the beginning of May, a month which began with a three-game slide. They're just one game ahead of the last-place Boston Red Sox in the AL East.
"The bottom line is we still didn't score a lot of runs. That seems to be what we're struggling with right now," Girardi said.
New York hitters had been in a 5-for-57 rut with runners in scoring position when Raul Ibanez homered one out after Robinson Cano's leadoff double in the sixth.
The Yankees had plenty of traffic against Cincinnati, but didn't do much damage.
Reds manager Dusty Baker employed Sean Marshall and Logan Ondrusek to get through the eighth. The Reds held on when Alex Rodriguez's bid for a go-ahead, two-run homer seemed to get held up and was caught on the warning track.
"There were some balls that were hit pretty good that were caught," Ibanez said. "Alex hit that ball really good right into the wind. I thought it was gone. We all thought it was gone."
Sabathia admitted the Yankees' offensive slump has taken its toll on the pitching staff.
"These guys are scratching and clawing," he said. "It's a great offense, but it's been tough lately."
Added Girardi: "It's strange to watch what we've watched the last week or so."
Where's the offense?! Yankees fans, sound off in the comments below...
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