Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fat Lady is Getting Ready to Sing for Yankees

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fat Lady is Getting Ready to Sing for Yankees: Y ankees Looked Like a Team Eliminated and it is All but Official By Rich Mancuso BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25- It will be officia...

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fat Lady is Getting Ready to Sing for Yankees

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Fat Lady is Getting Ready to Sing for Yankees: Y ankees Looked Like a Team Eliminated and it is All but Official By Rich Mancuso BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25- It will be officia...

Fat Lady is Getting Ready to Sing for Yankees

Yankees Looked Like a Team Eliminated and it is All but Official

By Rich Mancuso

BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25- It will be official by Thursday, as reality will say time has run out for the New York Yankees and any hope for post season baseball. Tuesday night in the Bronx, when Tampa Bay Rays lead-off hitter Matt Joyce drove a home run to right off Hiroki Kuroda it was going to be that type of ballgame.

And all that was left when the night was over is that the Yankees know, Wednesday night they have to win. Though the inevitable is here, and reality of post season aspirations means they have to win all of their remaining five games.

Winning them all, though, could be too much to ask. Because this has been a season of hope for the Yankees, and despite the numerous injuries, they should not even be fighting for their playoff hopes even if it meant being a post season second wild card team out of the American League.

However, baseball is made to be played until there is an elimination game. And on Wednesday night, elimination faces the Yankees, a team that may have had their final chance for a post season chance before they took the field Tuesday night.

Instead, the starter, Hiroki Kuroda once again did not have his best stuff. The same issues that have seen him lose seven of his last 12 starts have just about put the final nail in the coffin of the Yankees. And now it is more likely going to be a rare October with no post season baseball in the Bronx.

The manager, Joe Girardi, who has been the optimistic one, had that look of disappointment and there was a sense it was over in his post game meeting with the media after Tampa Bay shut out the Yankees 7-0. He talked about Kuroda, how the sinker, slider, and his overall stuff were not there.

And then there was that issue, again, as was so often this season. The Yankees could not capitalize and get the hits when they were needed.

“It’s frustrating because we had opportunities and we weren’t able to put in the hits,” said Girardi. “Runs have been tough for us lately at a time when we needed to score some runs we weren’t able to do it.” He reflected on the Boston series last week and being swept in three games up at Fenway Park.

“We lost the game Sunday,” he added referring to a game his Yankees needed to win against the lowly San Francisco Giants. “It’s been a combination,” he said. A 31-31 record since the All-Star break will not guarantee a spot for October. Nor will stranding 11 on base as the New York offense once again went cold at the wrong time.  

“Right now we need a ton of help and need to win games,” said Girardi. He was reacting to a question about this possibly being the end of a season. He has been optimistic despite the gloom and doom of a long season that was interrupted often with one injury or another to a key player.

 “That’s what you work for," he said. The reference was to starting in February and working your way to October. Unfortunate for the Yankees, they will wait one more day until not playing baseball in October becomes official.

Comment Rich Mancuso: Ring786@aol.com   Facebook.com/Ri

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): The End Is Near For Yankees

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): The End Is Near For Yankees: Rays Shutout Yanks, 7-0 By Howard Goldin BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25- The Yanks lost a must-win game to the Tampa Rays on Tuesday ni...

The End Is Near For Yankees

Rays Shutout Yanks, 7-0

By Howard Goldin

BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25- The Yanks lost a must-win game to the Tampa Rays on Tuesday night. The Yanks entered the contest trailing four teams for a Wild Card spot in the American League, Tampa and Cleveland by four games, Texas by three and Kansas City by one.

The Rays wasted no time before putting runs up on the board. The game’s lead-off batter, Matt Joyce, hit the third pitch thrown by Yankee starter Hiroki Kuroda into the right field stands.

Rookie Will Myers followed with a single to center. He was driven across the plate by a double to right by David DeJesus. The latter moved to third on the outfield throw and scored as the next batter, Evan Longoria hit a sacrifice fly to deep right field. The three runs in the first were sufficient to ensure the victory.

Kuroda settled down and retired 15 of 16 batters from the first through five innings. Longoria was the only Tampa batter to reach base during that stretch as he was safe on an error by Yankee third sacker Eduardo Nuñez in the fifth.

Myers walked to begin the sixth. The base on balls was the first issued by Kuroda during the contest. With one down, Longoria doubled to left and Ben Zobrist was intentionally walked to load the bases. A double by James Loney knocked in two runs to give the Rays a 5-0 advantage.

The visitors added two more runs in the ninth.

Although the Rays starter Matt Moore exhibited wildness during his five innings, six walks and three wild pitches, he did not allow a runner to cross the plate. The major league sophomore had another one of his impressive performances, which earned him his eighth victory in his last nine decisions.

Moore only gave up three hits in his five innings of work. The first Yankee hit was a single by Ichiro in the third. Two more singles by Alfonso Soriano and Nuñez were hit in the fifth.

The game was the 20th of Moore’s 26 starts in 2013 in which he held the opposing team to six hits or less. The 24 year-old is undefeated, 16-0, in those 20 starts. He is obviously not suffering from the “sophomore jinx.” If he hid not been on the disabled list for more than one month earlier this summer he very likely may have achieved 20 wins this year.

Clutch hitting was absent while the Yankees batted against Moore. They stranded 10 runners and were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position while Moore was on the mound.

When all of Tuesday’s games ended, The Yanks trailed Tampa and Cleveland by five games with five remaining. Winning all five will not be sufficient for the Yanks unless Tampa and/or Cleveland loss all of their remaining contests.

Phil Hughes (4-13) and David Price (8-8) will be the starting pitchers in game two of the three game set on Wednesday evening.

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Killer Phones It In

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Killer Phones It In: Norwood Woman Murdered, Boyfriend Charged BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 24 - Police have charged the boyfriend of a Norwood woman who wa...

Killer Phones It In

Norwood Woman Murdered, Boyfriend Charged

BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 24- Police have charged the boyfriend of a Norwood woman who was shot to death inside her home. Cops say the boyfriend called to confess the crime shortly after the murder.

 

Cops say Frederick White, 42, called police at 12:30 a.m. on September 11. Upon their arrival to 3576 Dekalb Avenue, police discovered Cleopatra Lovelace, 30, had been shot in the back of the head. Lovelace died at the scene.

 

Few people knew the couple, which only moved into the building a few months earlier.

One resident of the quiet building, who declined to be identified, stated, "I was in complete shock... they would come and go, but no one had time to get to know them."

 

White has been charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

 

The victim is the seventh homicide reported within the 52nd Precinct command. There were just three homicides reported over the same time period last year.