I’m talking about my feelings because I don’t feel too good right now. The New York Yankees lost to the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 8-6. Starting for the New York Yankees was Andy Pettitte and he gave up five earned runs on nine hits in six innings of work for the no decision. Mariano Rivera got the loss. He gave up two earned runs on two hits in .2 of an inning. First let’s start with Andy Pettitte. Andy Pettitte gave up four home runs. In the begginning of the game, Andy Pettitte was throwing too many strikes. Some times you have to back batters off the plate and make the uncomfortable and Pettitte threw 11 strikes in a row at one time and that’s when Pena hit a home run. Pettitte’s control was excellent. He had a good change up and was throwing his cutter on both sides of the plate. He was sharp. Some of his pitches like the home run to Pena were on the inner third of the plate but Pena still smashed it. His curveball was flat on the home run pitch to Ben Zobrist. Pettitte made mistakes with his location. When Andy Pettitte makes mistakes, he doesn’t get away with it. Some pitchers do but he didn’t. Mariano’s cutter didn’t have a lot of life on it and it was clocked at 89 mph. Mariano has already given up four home runs after giving up four all last year. I’ve never seen him pulled from the middle of the inning. You have to give Carl Crawford credit when he tied the game off of Mo. He took an inside cutter and smashed it to right-field. The pitch would of been better if it was away but Mo put the pitch where Carl was able to pull it. The home run to Longoria was right down the middle of the plate but you have to understand that there was a tremendous emotional let down for Mo after he blew the game with Crawford. Mo’s pitches were clocked between 89 mph to 91 mph and that’s a lot of velocity to give up when you usually pitch at 93 mph. It makes a big difference to batters especially since they can keep fouling your pitches off so they can wait for the right pitch. Instead of getting jammed with a 93 mph cutter, batters can get the barrel of the bat around on a cutter that’s much slower. I do know that Mariano is never good coming in a game when it’s tied. I don’t remember him ever doing well. Robinson Cano was swinging at a lot of first pitch, pitches last year but this year he’s going deeper into the count. The thing is, he might of forgot how to hit the ball because I can’t remember the last time he got a hit. Mark Teixeira is 1-for-21 with men on base. It seems like he doesn’t know how to hit a breaking ball. Is Johnny Damon the only hitter on this team? It seems that the Yankees will come back in a game and feel good about themselves after they score some runs and get some momentum but then the other team comes back and scores runs. The Yankees’ bull pen is not working, they’re not hitting with men in scoring position and their starting pitching has been inconsistent.
