Boo-Birds Let It Rip In Bronx As Yankees Limp Into All-Star Break
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Aaron Hicks' ball cleared the left field wall in a hurry and CC Sabathia shouted in disgust.
No, the big left-hander wasn't yelling at shortstop Eduardo Nunez, whose two-out throwing error gave Hicks a chance to bat. He was angry with himself.
Hicks homered in the third inning for three of the Twins' eight runs against Sabathia and Minnesota beat the New York Yankees ace for the first time in six years, 10-4 Sunday.
"Guys are going to make errors," Sabathia said. "It's up to the pitcher to make pitches."
The fans let New York know their displeasure, booing relentlessly after the Yankees fell behind 8-1 in the fourth.
"That was probably one of the uglier games I've seen in this stadium for sure," Vernon Wells said. "Just anything we did wrong came back to bite us."
The Yankees had too many mistakes to overcome in dropping their second straight to the Twins. The series loss was New York's first in the Bronx to Minnesota since 2001.
New York made two errors that led to five unearned runs. They also hit into four double plays — two on baserunning blunders by Zoilo Almonte — in making it plenty easy for the Twins in the teams' final game before the All-Star break.
"Losing is disappointing, no matter how you do it," Wells said. "The way this game played out, with just how ugly it was, it'll be good to quickly forget about."
"It's not what you want. You want to play well going into the break,'' Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "(Saturday) we didn't score any runs. Today we didn't play good defense behind our ace.''
Minnesota is 9-31 at New York since 2002, and they've had even less success against Sabathia (9-8), going 0-11 in 12 games — including the postseason — after beating him on July 29, 2007.
Sabathia gave up a season-high for runs — only three earned — and matched his low of four innings this year in 88-degree heat.
"I've been not pitching very well," said Sabathia, who matched a career worst for losses at the All-Star break (2008). "I look forward to the break and pitching better in the second half."
Ichiro Suzuki homered among his three hits in his 2,000th major league game. Robinson Cano added an RBI single for New York, which goes into the break 51-44.
"I think we just need to be more consistent, we got to stay out of stretches where we don't score runs," Girardi said. "We have to be more consistent offensively and if we do that, we're going to have a shot."
Rookie Kyle Gibson (2-2) benefited from the sloppy play to earn his second win in four career starts. He pitched five-plus shaky innings, yielding three runs — two earned — on five hits and four walks.
"It was a battle. It was really humid, pretty hot out there," Gibson said. "The situation of being in Yankee Stadium, being in the heat , facing a good lineup, it all piles up."
Minnesota improved to 3-7 on a 10-game road trip and is 39-53.
"Things went our way and that hasn't happened here in a long time," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.
Lyle Overbay couldn't handle Ryan Doumit's two-out hot shot to first base with the bases loaded in the fourth for an error to let in two runs to make it 8-1. The previous batter, Justin Morneau, hit a popup in between the mound and second base that was just out of a lunging Sabathia's reach. Sabathia slid on his knees after missing the ball as Jamey Carroll scored.
"The bloop over the pitcher's head was incredible," Gardenhire said.
In the third, Morneau, who came in batting .128 against Sabathia, hit a short fly to right that hit off second baseman Cano's glove for a double. Nunez made his error two batters later and Hicks connected for a 5-0 lead.
Sabathia shouted and Nunez took off his glove and held his hand on his hip as Hicks rounded the bases with his eighth homer of the year.
"I was rushed, it was a slow ball and he was fast," Nunez said. "Feel sad for my teammate CC. He did everything he could do today and making an error, it's bad."
In the first inning, Almonte burst off first base on Cano's sharp liner to right and was doubled off to end the inning. The rookie tried tagging up on a routine fly to left field in the third but was out at home by several feet.
Almonte reached on second baseman Brian Dozier's fielding error and advanced on Cano's RBI single that made it 5-1 and a groundout.
Carroll — in the lineup because he was 4 for 10 against Sabathia — and Pedro Florimon had RBI singles in the second.
Suzuki homered in the seventh to make it 8-4. Dozier had an RBI double in the eighth and Yankees catcher Chris Stewart's passed ball allowed one more in the ninth.
NOTES: Cano had at least one RBI in all seven games against the Twins this year. He had nine in a four-game sweep at Minnesota. ... Girardi said Andy Pettitte will start Friday at Boston in the first game after the break. He will be followed by Hiroki Kuroda and Sabathia. ... Gardenhire set his post-break rotation, too: Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Scott Diamond and Samuel Deduno. ... Girardi said injured SS Derek Jeter (quad strain) will not be evaluated until Thursday or Friday. ... Alex Rodriguez went 1 for 3 with a run-scoring double and two RBIs for Class A Tampa, his first extra-base hit during a minor league rehabilitation assignment. A-Rod is scheduled to join Double-A Trenton for Monday's game at Reading, Pa.
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