When the Yankees Need His Best, Wang Delivers His Worst

Blue Jays 15, Yankees 4

TORONTO, Aug. 8 — To beat Roy Halladay on Wednesday, the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang needed to be exceptional. There may be no pitcher who is tougher on the Yankees than Halladay.

“When you have Halladay on the mound, you know you have to control it,” Yankees Manager Joe Torre said. “You know you have to keep them down. When we couldn’t do that, you realized it was a tall order.”

Wang suffered through the worst performance of his career, lasting just two and two-thirds innings in a 15-4 rout by the Toronto Blue Jays. It was the shortest of Wang's 71 career starts, and he allowed a career-high eight runs.

Halladay worked seven innings and struck out eight, improving to 10-4 in his career against the Yankees.

For the Yankees, who had won five in a row, it was a dreary way to start a challenging chunk of their schedule. Starting Friday in Cleveland, the Yankees play 17 of 20 games against four of the best teams in the American League.

chunk n. 相當大的部分(或數量)

After a three-game series with the Indians, the Yankees play host to the fourth-place Baltimore Orioles for three games and then the Detroit Tigers for four. They follow that with a seven-game trip to Anaheim and Detroit before playing three games at home against Boston.

“Right now, we're probably as good a team as we've been all year,” Torre said. “We'll see how good that is when we test ourselves against the better teams.”

Despite the blowout, the Yankees left town with another series victory. They were 21-8 in a stretch against games teams that were under .500 at the All-Star Game break.

“We played well, we have some momentum and we have some guys swinging very hot bats right now,” Johnny Damon said. “I think we're feeling pretty good about our chances.”

momentum n. 氣勢

The Yankees stand only a half-game behind the Seattle Mariners for the lead in the A.L. wild-card race, an encouraging place to be. But on a small scale, it was startling to see Wang struggle so badly. He had worked at least six innings in each of his previous 12 starts, and was 10-1 in his last 13.

startling a. 令人吃驚的

The effectiveness of Wang's sinker is muted, to some degree, by playing on artificial turf, where ground balls get through the infield quicker. In 10 career starts on turf, Wang has a 5.17 earned run average; his E.R.A. on grass is 3.64.

turf n. 草皮

But this game was less about the playing surface than Wang’s location. He was consistently up in the strike zone with his sinker, and when he went to a slider, as he did against Vernon Wells in the third, he often hung it.

Wells slammed that pitch to left for a double, one of five hits off Wang in a five-run inning. That followed a three-run first in which Matt Stairs and Alex Rios doubled. Wang allowed no home runs, but the Blue Jays collected five doubles off him, among their nine hits.

“Everything was down the middle,” Wang said, adding later, “The low ball was too low, in the dirt.”

Wang said he was not bothered by his troublesome fingernail, which has split because of the pressure he applies on his sinker. He said his arm angle was too low, and he could not remember a start so bad since a game for Class AA Trenton in 2004.

Wang left after 59 pitches, his career-low for a start, throwing 31 balls. The doubles kept coming against Jeff Karstens and Ron Villone, and when Frank Thomas smacked one off the top of the wall in left-center field in the seventh inning, it tied a Toronto club record for doubles in a game: nine.

By then, some of the Yankees were gone. Alex Rodriguez took a day to rest his sore left calf; Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada were removed in the seventh; and Bobby Abreu was ejected for arguing a called third strike in the fourth.

Torre said the plate umpire, Derryl Cousins, had a “short fuse” in ejecting Abreu, since Abreu did not swear at him. Abreu, who slammed his bat in the dugout, told a different story.

swear at 詛咒

“It was a bad word,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “It was in English.”