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Bats Stay Cold As The Yankees Drop Three Out Of Four In Tampa

By Antonio Mendes

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Thursday the New York Yankees took on the Tampa Bay Rays in the last game of their four game series this week. Starting for the Yankees was Chase Whitley, and for the Rays Erasmo Ramirez. This would be Whitley’s fourth start since taking over for recovering Masahiro Tanaka.

The game would start out like almost every Yankees game, with Jacoby Ellsbury reaching base. Brett Gardner would sac bunt him over to second, and with a shift on Mark Teixeira, Ells’ would steal and get to third. That’s the furthest he would get as Arod and Teixeira would strikeout and line-out.  Whitley would struggle early, giving up a double and a single, the Rays got out to an early 1-0 lead. 

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The second inning is where things got even worse. Whitley’s command was notably off and had Brian McCann chasing almost every pitch. With two outs Whitley walked Asdrubal Cabrera, next he walked Kevin Kiermaier on four pitches. Whitley was immediately taken out with as suspected a right elbow injury. That was the most news any reporter could get on the injury, as for Whitley he will stay in Tampa to get MRIs tomorrow.

Whitley pitched 1.2 innings, his control seemed shaky right from the start, whether the injury happened before the game or during, it wasn’t there. Esmil Rogers replaced Whitley and gave up a three run home run on his first pitch, giving the Rays a 4-0 lead. Rogers who had a slight competition with Adam Warren in spring training to become to become the Yankees fifth starter until Chris Capuano returned. If he had a chance to prove something in the future aspect, he wasted it tonight.

The Yankees would have no answer for the Rays throughout the night. Before the ninth inning when Alex Rodriguez hit a wasted home run, the Yanks had a 26 inning drought between extra base hits (the last was Mark Teixeira’s ninth inning home run). The offense could never get going tonight, the same situation for the two games before. The Yanks dropped three out of four in Tampa, and their lead in the AL East is now just one game.

Following the game Joe Girardi confirmed Chris Capuano will take Chase Whitley’s spot in the rotation as suspected. Whitley’s injury might be more serious than expected as Girardi described it with “It’s in that area you don’t want to talk about”.

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