Yankees Tire After Matching an Eight-Run Inning

White Sox 13, Yankees 9

Dozens of reporters surrounded Alex Rodriguez long after a draining game at Yankee Stadium. He had two hits yesterday, although not his 500th home run, and the first question was whether he felt better about his at-bats.

“Yeah,” Rodriguez said, the word hanging there like some of the 90 pitches that were thrown in an hourlong second inning. “We're all tired, aren't we?”

The Yankees had nothing to show for the 3 hours 59 minutes they spent in the broiling heat. They recovered quickly from the eight runs Roger Clemens allowed in the second, but they could not summon enough offense to outscore the Chicago White Sox, who took a 13-9 victory.

The loss was the Yankees’ first since Saturday and cost them a game in the American League East and the wild-card standings. They are eight games behind Boston in the division and three behind Cleveland for the wild card.

“I've had plenty of tough starts in my career,” Clemens said. “They don't get any easier.”

Actually, Clemens had never had a start quite like this. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time in his 701 career starts that he allowed nine hits in an inning. He had not allowed eight runs in an inning since June 26, 1987, the week that his teammate Phil Hughes turned 1.

What truly made this game bizarre, though, was what happened in the bottom of the second. The Yankees scored eight runs against Jon Garland, knocking him out the same way Chicago had chased Clemens.

According to Elias, it was the highest-scoring second inning in major league history. And only once before had both teams scored eight runs in an inning: on May 8, 2004, when the Detroit Tigers scored 8 in the top of the fifth, and the Texas Rangers scored 10 in the bottom.

The Yankees’ comeback spared Clemens the loss, but he was consistently up in the strike zone, and the White Sox sizzled hits through the thick air. Some were hit hard, others were not, and Robinson Canó booted a potential double-play ball that led to five unearned runs. It was one of two errors by Canó.

“Robby's played his tail off,” Clemens said. “You can't worry about that. That's going to happen. Every day guys are busting their butt. I don't put a lot of stock in that. Just take a deep breath, execute and get out of it.”

For Clemens, the inning simply would not end. He dropped to his knees to field a ball and threw out a runner at the plate. But when he tried to get Jim Thome to roll his wrists and tap a grounder to second on a 1-2 splitter, Thome reached out and singled softly to the left side, driving in two runs.

After a double by Paul Konerko, another soft hit — a bouncer up the middle by A. J. Pierzynski — drove in two more runs to make the score 8-0. Jermaine Dye's bloop double, his second of the inning, ended Clemens's day.

Clemens was the first of several players to leave the game prematurely. Three White Sox — Thome, Álex Cintrón and Darin Erstad — left with minor injuries. The Yankees' Jorge Posada bruised his left knee in a collision with Danny Richar in the seventh. Posada tried to catch the eighth but had trouble squatting.

prematurely adv. 過早地
bruise v. 使...受瘀傷，使...青腫
squat v. 蹲


“The knees banged together,” said Posada, who is due to get a day off soon. “It's not going to be bad.”

Posada had two doubles in the second, which also included a three-run homer by Wilson Betemit in his first at-bat with the Yankees. Betemit, a switch-hitter batting left-handed, crushed a ball to center field. He then took a curtain call.

The ball carried well to center all game, and Yankees Manager Joe Torre said he thought that might have surprised center fielder Melky Cabrera, who let Dye's first double of the second inning glance off his glove at the warning track.

But there was no doubt about Dye's eighth-inning blast, which crashed off a billboard right below the black bleachers in straightaway center. It was Dye's second home run of the game and it came off a 99-mile-an-hour fastball from Kyle Farnsworth, who also allowed a home run to Konerko.

blast n. 狠狠的一擊
billboard n. 廣告牌
bleachers n. 【美】露天看台


Farnsworth, who was kept at the trading deadline despite his erratic performance, refused to take questions after the game. It was a tiring day for him, too.