Yanks Eighth Inning Comeback Not Enough, Red Sox win 8-6

It’s amazing how the game of baseball can make you feel euphoric one inning and make you feel like you’re in despair the next. That’s exactly what happened to Yankee fans tonight in the eighth and ninth innings.

With the Yanks down 6-4  in the bottom of the eighth – after both CC Sabathia and John Lester had iffy outings – the Yankees were threatening to tie the score. And thanks to some disparaging remarks earlier in the season in which Vicente Padilla accused Mark Teixeira of racism against Latino players , the stage was set for some dramatics in that frame.

It was as if it were scripted by a Hollywood writer, of course our hero Teixeira would be the one walking up to the plate as the tying run and naturally he’d be facing the evil bad guy Padilla.  Some people were even predicting that Padilla would do something silly like hit Teixeira. After an eephus pitch on 2-0 that froze Teixeira, Padilla decided to speed things up and when he did, Teixeira crushed his 2-1 offering into right centerfield.

In a very uncharacteristic moment, Teixeira actually admired the home run and even strutted out of the box. Normally, I don’t like that sort of stuff but in this case – especially after some of the stuff that Padilla said – I felt like it was completely warranted. In fact, I wish Teixeira had gone a step further and strutted as he was crossing the plate as well.

So Yankee fans were happy. The Yankees had tied the game after being down as many five runs in this game and then the top of the ninth happened.

Rafael Soriano came to keep the game tied and he started off well by getting Ryan Sweeney to fly out to start the inning. But then he walked Jacoby Ellsbury which wasn’t the best outcome for the Yanks but it would be fine, right? Soriano just had to get two more outs, the game would remain tied and the Yankees would win in the bottom of the ninth.

Nope.

Pedro Ciriaco, who has somehow become a Yankee killer this season, hit a fly ball to center that was played terribly by Curtis Granderson and it turned into a run scoring triple. The Sox were up 7-6. Dustin Pedroia followed that up with a sacrifice fly to score Ciriaco to make it 8-6.

And that’s how it would end because the Yankees would not be able to do anything against former Yankee Alfredo Aceves who picked up his 22nd save of the season.

The Yankees so far in 2012 are 6-2 against the Red Sox and their two losses have been on Saturdays when the games are aired on Fox . Strange, right? Though, the Yankees do have one win during a Fox broadcast, the infamous nine-run comeback game in Fenway that turned into a 15-9 laugher.

Some stats from the game:

• Sabathia’s final line: 6 IP, 6 ER, 8 H, 6 K.
• Lester’s final line: 6 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 6 K.
• Jayson Nix in his career has three home runs off Lester, he added the third today.
• Teixeira’s home run was his 20th on the year.
• The teams combined for four home runs today and now have combined to hit 10 so far this series.

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