The New York Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 4-3. Starting for the Yankees was A.J. Burnett and he pitched good giving up 3 earned runs on 6 hits in 6 innings of work for the no decision. Phil Coke got the loss by giving up a home run to Carlos Pena of Tampa in the top of the 10th inning. A.J. Burnett was throwing the baseball with great power. He was hitting the radar gun at 96 mph. He had a very sharp breaking ball that was in the low 80’s and his power curveball was awesome. He was throwing his breaking ball on both sides of the plate. Here’s the problem with A.J. Burnett however. He works to strike a lot of batters out and the batters foul a lot of his pitches off. Every time they fouled his pitches off, his pitch count would go up. If he was able to throw one or two pitch outs, his pitch count would be much lower and he would be able to last in games longer. This could be a reason why he never had a great era and why he never won over 15 games consistently. He would have to come out of the game too soon. It also didn’t help that Ramiro Pena’s error in the first inning made Burnett throw 10 more pitches. Tonight Burnett kept pitching with 2-0 counts and that’s another reason why they scored three runs off of him. Before the season started, I read a lot of Texas Ranger message boards and a lot of fans would say that Mark Texeiria is going to drive us Yankee fans crazy because he doesn’t hit in the clutch. Well tonight he did and he didn’t. Prior to him driving in three runs to tie the game, he was 0-for-18 with runners on base. In the 10th inning, you have to tip your cap to Carlos Pena because he hit a perfect pitch. Well it was almost perfect. Phil Coke threw the ball exactly where Jose Molina wanted it. It was on the outer third of the plate. The framing of the pitch by Molina was good, the execution of the pitch was good but Pena went out and got the pitch. Phil Coke is fearless and he goes right after hitters with fastballs but Carlos Pena is a great fastball hitter. He leads the league in home runs so Coke might of went after the wrong guy tonight. Coke was better off pitching Pena “in” hoping he would hook the ball foul but Pena extended on the pitch and hooked it. With the new wind tunnel that goes into the right-field, it was a nightmare waiting to happen.
