Bad News Yankees Fall to Twins

The New York Yankees limped into the All Star break with a dismal performance, resulting in a 10-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium Sunday. The performance was more reminiscent of the Bad News Bears than the Bronx Bombers.

C.C. Sabathia gave up eight runs in four innings, but five of those were unearned. The unraveling began in the third inning. Trevor Plouffe of the Twins hit a grounder to short stop Eduardo Nunez, who threw wildly to Lyle Overbay at first base. This provided Aaron Hicks an opportunity to hit a three-run home run to put the Twins up 5-0.

Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

An inning later the mishaps continued. Ryan Doumit grounded to first. Overbay attempted to backhand the ball. Instead, it  glanced off of his glove and skidded into right field, allowing two more runs to score.

In the ninth, with Joba Chamberlain on the mound, the circus act continued with a bases-loaded pass ball charged to Chris Stewart.

Despite the defensive mishaps, the Yankees did post some offensive highlights. Ichiro Suzuki went three for five on the day. One of those was a seventh inning home run off of Twins’ reliever Caleb Thielbar. Chris Stewart and Robinson Cano, who went two for four, also added an RBI each to round out the Yankees scoring. Cano has put up an RBI against the Twins in eight straight games.

Although they were able to touch Twins’ starter Kyle Gibson for three runs in five innings, the Yankees were only one for ten with runners in scoring position. Altogether, they left nine runners on base.

Sabathia, who had won nine straight regular season decisions against the Twins, saw his record drop to 9-8 on the season. His earned run average is at 4.07. So the Yankees head into the All Star break with a record of 51-44. They are 6.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox.

That’s not good news. But remember, when all was said and done, the Bad News Bears did get better and climb up the standings.