BALTIMORE — The 2015 Yankees don't figure to do the big things particularly well — the "big things" in this context meaning "score runs" and "prevent runs."
So if Joe Girardi's guys want to be more than a transitional vehicle, they'll have to excel at the little things. That means not giving extra outs to their opponents. It means capitalizing on the few scoring opportunities they create.
It means, in the bigger picture, winning most of their close games. And it means that losses like Tuesday's, 4-3 to the Orioles at Camden Yards, sting all the more.
The Yankees fell to 2-2 in one-run games this season — and 3-5 overall, giving them sole residency in the American League East cellar — primarily because they went 1-for-8 (plus a walk) with runners in scoring position, an arena in which they had been faring better lately. And losing pitcher CC Sabathia continued his odd, years-long trend of putting up a stellar strikeouts-to-walks ratio (7-1) and still giving up too many runs (four); he hurt his cause with an error, and shortstop Didi Gregorius added a miscue, giving the Yankees a startling 11 errors for the season.
It came together as the sort of game a better club could shrug off, as O's starter Miguel Gonzalez set a career high with 10 strikeouts.
"He wasn't making any mistakes," Mark Teixeira, whose sixth-inning, two-out, RBI double represented the Yankees' one clutch hit, said of Gonzalez. "He's got five pitches. Not many guys have five pitches. When he was missing, he was missing out of the zone. He pitched really well. You've got to give him credit."
Brian McCann twice made the third out, on groundouts in the sixth and eighth, with Teixeira on second; the latter time, Teixeira represented the tying run.
Teixeira added of the Baltimore right-hander, "It's not like he needed to get out of too many jams, but he did when he needed to."
Actually, Gonzalez gave the Yankees more opportunities than Sabathia did to Baltimore.
Nevertheless, the Orioles cashed in on enough of their chances, going 1-for-5 with two sacrifice flies when they put runners in scoring position.
The Yankees now own a .246/.320/.443 slash line in 75 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, which is better than their overall .225/.302/.398. So on the bright side, at least Yankees fans can't complain about the team's lack of clutch hitting, which usually evolves into a criticism of the team's heart and guts. This club just isn't very good, period.
The Yankees' fielding incompetence didn't directly hurt them on Tuesday, yet it did prolong Sabathia's pitch count, never a good thing, as the Orioles slowly ran up their lead.
Sabathia himself struggled to catch up to Caleb Joseph's second-inning swinging bunt on the first-base side of the mound and underhanded a poor throw; a more sympathetic official scorer might have given Joseph an infield hit, but Sabathia's lack of mobility stood out regardless. The same went earlier in the second when Sabathia allowed a Chris Davis grounder to first and couldn't make it over to the bag, turning a potential 3-6-1 double play into just a 3-6 force.
Girardi covered for his pitcher with the surgically repaired knee, nothing that Sabathia falls off to his right after he throws a pitch and, besides, "He's a big man."
Sabathia, who rarely minces words when assessing his performance, blamed his lack of mobility on being "34 years old. Four years ago, I could've made that play," he said, referring to the Joseph play. Gregorius muffed a Delmon Young grounder in the sixth, the ball falling out of his hand on the transfer out of his glove.
"I think his luck is going to change," Girardi said of Sabathia.
It pretty much has to in order for the Yankees to beat the odds and overcome their big flaws with small victories.
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