BRONX, NEW YORK, AUGUST 21- In the day portion of the day/night doubleheader with the Blue Jays on Tuesday, New York overcame a 4-0 deficit by scoring eight unanswered runs to win, 8-4. The hero was second sacker Robinson Cano who hit safely in all four at bats, driving in four runs.
Ichiro Suzuki raised his professional career hit total to, 3,999 with two hits in the opener.
The night contest was much more of a pitching duel, but ended in a similar fashion as the first game, with the Yankees coming from behind to achieve the victory.
Neither starter, Phil Hughes nor Mark Buehrle, has been highly successful at Yankee Stadium this season. In two starts in the Bronx this year, Buehrle has yielded 10 runs in only 11 frames. The career mark of the veteran hurler is 183-139, but against the Yanks he is 1-10 with an ERA of 6.28 in 16 starts. His team has defeated the Yanks only once in those 16 starts.
Hughes is 1-9 at home with an ERA of 6.03. Of the 23 home runs he has surrendered, 17 were hit at Yankee Stadium.
Both pitched into the seventh and neither even remotely resembled the ineffective pitcher he was earlier in the season in the Bronx.
Buehrle gave up two runs and six hits in 6.2 innings. He departed after Jayson Nix blasted a solo home run on the first pitch he saw in the seventh. The homer raised the batting average of Nix against the veteran left-hander to .426.
Hughes faced one batter in the seventh and left the game having yielded two runs and seven hits, but none of the hits were four baggers. Yankee skipper Joe Girardi was pleased with the starter’s performance, “His fastball was down better today. I thought he stayed off the barrel of the bat today. We need him to continue making progress.”
Although he did not get the win, his team did. Thus, Hughes was happy, “It all starts with the fastball. It’s something to build off.”
The game was tied at 2-2 entering the bottom of the ninth. Mark Reynolds in his fourth game in Yankee pinstripes led off the inning by drawing a walk. Suzuki pinch ran for Reynolds. Eduardo Nuñez sacrificed Suzuki to second. The veteran great then stole third. The Yanks obtained their sixth walk-off win of the 2013 campaign as Nix singled in the winning run.
Of that successful rally, Girardi commented, “It was a good effort by all those guys.”
The Yanks have won 8 of their last 10 contests in a quest to qualify for the 2013 post-season.
The starters on Wednesday night are scheduled to be R.A. Dickey (9-11) for Toronto and Adam Warren (1-2) who will be making his second start in the majors, his first in 2013.
