New York Yankees Recap: Brian McCann’s Home Run Not Enough In 2-1 Loss To Indians

By Ricky Keeler | Aug 12, 2015

The offensive struggles for the New York Yankees (61-51) continued tonight at Progressive Field in the second game of their three game series against the Cleveland Indians (53-59). Even though CC Sabathia (4-9, 5.23) kept the Yankees in the game, the bats didn’t get much done against Danny Salazar (10-6, 3.26) as the Bronx Bombers fell to the Tribe, 2-1 as they have now lost five consecutive games. Plus, with the Blue Jays now having won ten games in a row, the Bronx Bombers are now a half game back of Toronto in the AL East.

New York would get their lone run of the game in the top of the second inning. With one out, Brian McCann hit a solo shot to right field, his 19^th of the season, to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.

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For four innings, that lead held up, but the Indians were able to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth against Sabathia. The inning started with back-to-back singles by Roberto Perez and Mike Aviles. After a sacrifice bunt by Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor drove in Perez with a base hit to right for the Indians’ first run. Sabathia was able to get Chris Johsnon to ground into an inning ending double play to get out of the jam.

One inning later, the Yankees’ left-hander ran into more trouble. Once again, Cleveland started it up with back-to-back singles (Carlos Santana and Jerry Sands). Two batters later, Abraham Almonte gave the Indians the lead by hitting a base hit to center that drove in Santana.

Sabathia would end up escaping further damage by striking out Roberto Perez and Didi Gregorius made a good play to take a hit away from Aviles to end the inning. Sabathia went six innings, gave up two runs on nine hits, struck out two, and walked two on 110 pitches (71 strikes) in the loss.

As for Salazar, New York struggled to get many scoring chances against the right-hander. They were able to chase Salazar out of the game in the top of the eighth after he walked Brett Gardner and Chase Headley with one out. Terry Francona would go to his bullpen and bring in closer Cody Allen to try and get a five out save.

Allen would keep the Indians in front as he was able to get Alex Rodriguez to ground into an inning ending double play. Salazar went 7.1 innings, gave up one run on four hits, struck out eight, and walked five on 110 pitches (66 strikes) in the win.

While Allen would allow McCann to reach base via a strikeout in the ninth, he was able to get out of the jam by getting Carlos Beltran to line out to left and Gregorius to strike out swinging to end the game (third K of the inning for Allen) to pick up his 23rd save of the season.

Next Game: The New York Yankees will try to avoid the sweep tomorrow night against the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. You can catch the game on WPIX and MLB Network at 7:10 PM ET. Nathan Eovaldi (11-2, 4.15) will get the start for the Yankees against Trevor Bauer (9-8, 4.06) for the Indians.

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