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Kuroda held the Orioles to 2 runs, but the Yankees ultimately lost in extra innings as the offense failed to pick him up.
Hiroki Kuroda started tonight's game as the lone starter from the original rotation, and aside from one inning, he pitched pretty well. Unfortunately, the Yankees' offense followed what seems to be the emerging theme from this season which is: score early then never score again.
The Yankees got on the board in the second inning when Brian Roberts hit a home run to right against his former team. Kelly Johnson, DH for the night, added their second and final run in the third inning, when he also hit a home run. In the fourth inning, things started off promisingly. Brian McCann slapped a ball down the right field line, but was held to a single as he is without a doubt the slowest runner on the team. With one out, Ichiro Suzuki hit his second double of the night, a deep line drive, which moved McCann over to third base. Yangervis Solarte and Kelly Johnson both came to the plate with runners on second and third, but failed to bring the runs in. In the seventh inning, Ichiro, Solarte and Brett Gardner somehow managed to all pop out into foul territory.
The second half of the fourth inning was even worse. First, Kuroda hit the lead-off batter, Steve Pearce. Then Adam Jones hit a high chopper which bounced off of Derek Jeter's glove (and ended up being ruled a single), and allowed Pearce to advance to third. A poorly timed wild pitch from Kuroda let Pearce score the Orioles' first run of the night. Kuroda was able to get Nelson Cruz to strikeout, before throwing yet another wild pitch which allowed Jones to take third. Chris Davis then hit a sac fly to score Jones. Clearly struggling with command issues, Kuroda hit the next batter, J.J Hardy, before finally getting the last out in the inning.
Kuroda threw his third wild pitch of the night in the sixth inning, but he was able to hold the Orioles to just two runs. He ended the night having pitched 7 innings with 3 hits, 2 ER, 3 Ks, 3 wild pitches and 2 HBP. Aside from Jeter's incident in the fourth inning, the defense made some nice plays tonight. Mark Teixeira made a rolling corkscrew type of play on a grounder hit by Chris Davis to end the sixth inning. Later in the game, Solarte was able to leap and catch a chopper hit by Nick Markakis to relay the ball to first in time to get the out.
Dellin Betances came on in relief in the 8th inning and he notched three strikeouts through two innings without giving up a hit. The Yankees last real chance to score came in the ninth inning when McCann hit a lead-off single up the gap. Francisco Cervelli came in to pinch run for him, with Brian Roberts at the plate. Roberts showed bunt, and his first attempt rolled foul. His next attempt stayed fair, but Chris Davis was able to get the ball to second base in time to get Cervelli out. Ichiro followed with a strikeout, Solarte walked, and Zelous Wheeler grounded out to third to end the inning.
The game went to extra innings for the second time in two days, and the Yankees ended up with the same outcome, though at least it was not so drawn out. Adam Warren came in to pitch the bottom of the 10th and promptly gave up a double to Manny Machado. He was able to strikeout Ryan Flaherty before Nick Hundley came up and hit the game winning single up the middle.
At least the bullpen wasn't decimated. It was kind of the team to lose quickly in extra innings.
Shane Greene will make his second start of the season tomorrow at 4:05 pm EST, against Chris Tillman, who has been bumped up a day to take Ubaldo Jimenez's start, after Jimenez injured his ankle.
