Month for Victory and Hours for Defeat

BALTIMORE, July 27 — Joe Torre, the Yankees' manager, said he believed his team's season turned on June 28, when Derek Jeter drove in the go-ahead runs in a downpour at Camden Yards against the Orioles, bringing an uplifting ending to a dreary road trip.

downpour n. 傾盆大雨
dreary a. 沉悶的，令人沮喪的


That game was suspended because of rain and completed on Friday, serving as a kind of baseball hors d'oeuvre that the Yankees savored. The main course was unfulfilling.

savor v. 品嚐，欣賞；具有...的味道(+of) n.滋味，風味，趣味

The Yankees held on to win the suspended game, 8-7, when Mariano Rivera earned the save in a rocky ninth inning. But they dropped the regularly scheduled game, 4-2, with Jeremy Guthrie and four relievers holding them to seven hits.

“We expected to win the first one, with a two-run lead in the eighth,” Jeter said. “In the second game, he pitched well, that's all you can say. The guy throws a 96-mile-an-hour two-seamer and he’s got a pretty good breaking ball. He just got the best of us.”

The Yankees thus ended the day in worse shape than they had started it. They trail Boston by eight games in the American League East and Cleveland by five games for the wild card. The offense has scored only two runs in 19 full innings since binging for 70 runs in a six-game winning streak that ended Thursday.

The output on Friday was not enough to lift Andy Pettitte, who was one strike from a scoreless third inning but ended up allowing three runs. The Orioles did not score any other runs off him over seven innings, but that was no consolation to Pettitte, who is 6-7 and has lost the groove he felt early this season.

consolation n. 慰藉，安慰
groove n. 【俚】稱心的東西，快活的經歷


“I'm just kind of fighting myself,” said Pettitte, who allowed eight hits and three walks, while striking out five. “I'm constantly having to make adjustments out there instead of it just being together for seven straight innings. I got in a little bit of a rhythm the last few innings, and that's what's frustrating — that I can struggle for a few innings and then it's fine, but yet the damage is done.”

Scott Proctor took over for Pettitte and gave up a leadoff home run to Kevin Millar on a fastball down the middle. Proctor has allowed eight home runs, ranking second among A.L. relievers.

“It's a cause for concern,” Torre said. “He's had success against Millar in the past. He's obviously not locating his pitches the way he'd like to.”

When Torre needed a reliever to take over for Mike Myers with one out and one on in the eighth inning of the suspended game, he bypassed Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth and called for Rivera.

“We had a plan in place,” Torre said. “Everyone on our side knew that as soon as the first guy reached in that inning, Mo was coming in. With the people they had coming up, we felt the eighth was the save inning.”

Maybe so, but after Rivera retired Aubrey Huff on a double-play grounder, the ninth inning turned hairy. Miguel Tejada struck out in his first at-bat since coming off the disabled list, but Corey Patterson doubled and a pinch hitter, Ramón Hernández, singled him home.

hairy a. 【俚】粗野的，令人不快的

Jay Payton bounced to Jeter, who stepped on second for the force out but threw wide of first, prolonging the inning.

prolong v. 拉長，延長

With two outs and a 2-2 count — after a long foul down the right-field line — Brian Roberts shot a double past third base, moving Payton to third. Brandon Fahey followed with a slow chopper to second, where Robinson Canó fielded it and raced Roberts to the bag.

Canó got there first, stomping on second for the force out to end a game that could finally be logged in the record books with minimal confusion.

stomp v. 重踏

Alex Rodriguez, who came into the game with 499 home runs, grounded out in his only at-bat, ending any debate over which home run should count as the 500th of his career.

When Rodriguez batted in the nightcap, camera flashes twinkled with every pitch, the way it is before the first pitch of the World Series. Yet Rodriguez managed only one fair ball in his three times up against Guthrie, walking in the first and the sixth and flying out to shallow center in the third. He lined out to left off Jamie Walker in the eighth.

The Yankees scored in the second on a two-out triple off the center-field wall by Melky Cabrera, who was stranded at third. The Yankees left a runner at third base in four of six innings off Guthrie.

Pettitte survived the second by getting a fly out from Roberts on a 2-0 pitch with the bases loaded, but he was not so lucky in the third.

A leadoff double by Patterson and two walks loaded the bases with two out in the third. The pitching coach Ron Guidry visited the mound, and Hernández came up, working a full count before pulling a four-seam fastball through the left side, scoring two runs.

Another single, by Jay Gibbons, made the score 3-1 Orioles. Although Pettitte had been one pitch from escaping the jam, he seemed to believe he deserved what he got.

“When you have a lot of base runners and you’re in trouble,” Pettitte said, “things like that are going to happen.”