Game 102: Yankees 11, Indians 4

Fausto Carmona's short outing yesterday essentially cost the Indians a chance of staying in this game. A day after the Indians' bullpen pitched 6.1 innings, Mitch Talbot had to leave in the third with a muscle strain in his back. The Indians are classifying Talbot's status as day-to-day, but the injury was a crushing blow to the team's chances not only in this game, but will have lingering effects in this weekend's series in Toronto.

Because Hector Ambriz and Jess Todd had gone multiple innings the night before, Rafael Perez relieved Talbot in the third. Perez got the Indians through two innings, then handed the ball to Frank Herrmann. Up to this point, the Yankees had threatened to blow the game open almost every inning, only to be denied. Frankly, it was amazing that the Indians were still in this game by the time the sixth inning started. Tony Sipp was brought on to stem yet another New York rally, and got Gardner and Curtis. Next up was Derek Jeter, and with a base open and Curtis Granderson on deck, it seemed a perfect time to pass on Jeter in favor of the left-on-left matchup. But Acta opted to have Sipp pitch to Jeter, and the move backfired when Sipp threw a pitch over the middle of the plate; Jeter singled home the go-ahead run, making the score 2-1.

To this point, the Indians had gotten away with using their relievers in either unaccustomed roles or unaccustomed lengths of outs. Sipp. who had made a lot of pitches to get out of the sixth, did retire the first two batters of the seventh, and matched up against Robinson Cano. Cano turned on a Sipp offering and hit it out of the park. That seemed to exhaust Sipp's last bit of energy, for he walked the next two batters and was pulled in favor of Joe Smith, who would get the Indians out of the inning, but not before allowing six more runs to score.

Jess Todd would barely get out of the eighth, having surrendered two runs. He'd thrown two innings the night before, and was obviously gassed. That left Hector Ambriz, who had thrown 40 pitches the night before, and closer Chris Perez, who had thrown in three of the four previous games. Manny Acta made a decision that managers never like to make; he called on a position player to pitch the ninth. His choice? Andy Marte, who had earlier than night "lost out" on the third base job to Jayson Nix. Now by this time the Yankees had emptied their bench, and wasn't exactly concentrating on the top of the ninth, but Marte retired the Yankees in order, including Nick Swisher on a strike out. Marte actually looked like a pitcher, and threw his fastball in the mid-80s. Marte was the first Indians position player to pitch in a game since 2004, when Tim Laker took one for the team during a game against Kansas City.

Perhaps buoyed by that bit of levity, the Indians would scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth off Chan Ho Park, and if Luis Valbuena had managed to hit a three-run homer, would have made the game interesting. But there were no miracles in store tonight, and the Indians will head to Toronto praying that their starters this weekend can go at least six innings to avoid a long-term problem. And that's assuming Jess Todd will be swapped out for a fresh arm between now and tomorrow night.

Oh, yeah...in the midst of all that offense, Alex Rodriguez failed to hit his 600th home run.

via www.fangraphs.com