2009 Yankees: A Bad Way to Go Into the All-Star Break

Welcome back to the next chapter of 2009 Yankees: The Last Championship - a week-by-week remembrance of the year in which they gave us their most recent World Series title. For whatever reason, the Angels gave the Yankees all kinds of problems in the first decade of the 21st century including playoff losses in 2002 and 2005. Games in Anaheim had been a particular problem and that continued big time in their first visit there in 2009.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (July 12, 2009) - Heading into the All-Star break riding a three-game losing streak certainly wasn’t ideal, but the Yankees left Mickey Mouse’s neighborhood mildly irritated yet not at all disheartened by how the first half of the season ended.

“This is a good team that plays well at home,” Mark Teixeira said of his former team, the Angels, who completed a three-game sweep with a 5-4 victory on a gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon in the ballpark located next door to Disneyland. “We just didn’t get it done, but it happens. We still have a good team.”

The lost weekend sent the Yankees into baseball’s version of intermission with a 51-37 record, third-best in all of MLB but only second-best in the AL East behind Boston’s 54-34 mark.

“You can’t let three games take away from the entire first half,” the always unflappable Derek Jeter said. “They just played better than us these three days. We’ll forget about these three games, the break’s coming at the right time and we’ll get back to playing Friday.”

Still, they could dismiss it all they want, but it was a frustrating end to a six-game road trip this way after it began with a three-game sweep of the Twins in Minnesota. They arrived in Anaheim having won 13 of their last 15, a stretch that erased all of a five-game deficit in the division.

Now, thanks to these three losses and Boston’s sweep of the lowly Royals, the Red Sox re-opened a three-game lead as the players - with the exception of Teixeira, Jeter, and Mariano Rivera who were headed to St. Louis for the All-Star Game - scattered for a few days of rest and relaxation.

“We don’t like it,” Joe Girardi said after watching his pitchers get shredded in the first two games by scores of 10-6 and 14-8, games where the Yankees blew four-run leads in each. “It’s not the end of the world, it’s not the end of the season. We’re three games back and we have plenty of time to play good baseball and we’ve played a lot of good baseball during the course of the year. We didn’t play good out here.”

Over the three games, starting pitchers Joba Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia allowed a combined 15 earned runs on 25 hits over just 15.1 innings. “That seemed to be the theme of the three days here; when we got balls up, they put good swings on them and got base hits,” Girardi said.

The Angels, leaders in the AL West at 49-37, fell behind 4-0 in the second inning of the Friday night game. Jeter led off the first inning with a single, one of his four hits, and scored the first run on Alex Rodriguez’s double, then Nick Swisher ripped a two-run double. In the second, Johnny Damon had an RBI single and it looked like the Yankees were going to cruise.

Later, A-Rod made it 5-1 with a solo homer in the fifth, but Chamberlain gave it all back during a four-run fifth, the big blow a tying three-run homer by Kendrys Morales. From there, the Yankee bullpen caved in as Mark Melancon and Brian Bruney gave up five runs.

On Saturday, Pettitte was terrible, torched for six runs inside five innings after home runs by A-Rod and Eric Hinske - who had been acquired on June 30 in a trade from Pittsburgh - helped stake the lefty to a 4-0 lead. The Angels scored seven times in the fifth off Pettitte and David Robertson to take an 8-4 lead, and after the Yankees clawed within 10-8 in the top of the eighth, the Angels ran away in the bottom half with four runs off Phil Coke.

In the finale, Sabathia was a little better, but a four-run fourth inning, followed by amazing Los Angeles defense late, decided the game. In that killer fourth, Sabathia had 0-2 counts on three hitters, yet all three ultimately reached base. Ex-Yankee Bobby Abreu tied it at 1-1 with an RBI double and Howie Kendrick’s RBI double, Brandon Wood’s RBI groundout, and Robb Quinlan’s RBI single made it 4-1.

The Angels did nothing else against Sabathia so the Yankees were still in it, but despite getting enough traffic on basepaths to make it look like the nearby 5 freeway, the Yankees couldn’t punch through.

Down 4-2 in the seventh, they loaded the bases with no outs but Teixeira struck out and A-Rod grounded into a double play as third baseman Chone Figgins made a highlight-reel grab of his grounder, and first baseman Morales made a great scoop on the relay throw to finish it. “Figgins’ play was huge,” said Angels starter and winner John Lackey. “It was a tough play, and he made an outstanding pick. Then Kendrys on the other end made another nice pick. It was awesome.”

Then in the eighth, having cut their deficit to 5-4, the Yankees had men on first and second with one out but Nick Swisher lined back to pitcher Darren Oliver who made an incredible stab, then doubled Melky Cabrera off first. “Felt like I hit the ball hard,” Swisher said. “As soon as I hit it I’m thinking ‘tie game.’ Next thing I know, he’s turning around and throwing to first. That’s a hell of a play.”

All A-Rod could do was salute that defense.

“Those are two of the most unbelievable double plays I’ve seen,” A-Rod said. “It’s just one of those things. The Angels being the Angels.”

They say Disneyland is “The Happiest Place on Earth” but it had been hell on earth for the Yankees as the sweep gave them 19 losses in their last 25 games in Anaheim counting the playoffs since the start of 2005.

Most concerning for the Yankees was these three losses dropped their record to 2-4 against the Angels in 2009, and coupled with their 2-1 mark against the AL Central-leading Tigers and their stunning 0-8 bagel against the Red Sox, that added up to a woeful 4-13 against the three division leaders. On the road, they were 0-9 combined against Boston and Los Angeles.

“These guys find a way to beat us so we have to figure out a way to beat them,” A-Rod said. “I feel very good about this team, but we have to play better against teams like Boston and Anaheim which we’re going to have to beat later on.”

“It makes us know we need to get better,” said Teixeira, who had not hit a home run in his last 95 at bats, the longest drought to that point in his career. “You don’t want to get confident that you think you can throw your gloves out there and win a game. Everyone needs to get a little better in those games.”

Here’s how the rest of week 13 went for the Yankees:

• July 7: The week began wonderfully as the Yankees went into the Metrodome and drubbed the Twins 10-2. They pounded out 16 hits including four singles by Teixeira, while Brett Gardner went 3-for-5 with a two-run triple during a decisive five-run sixth inning. It could have been worse, but Twins center fielder Carlos Gomez robbed A-Rod of a grand slam in the fourth inning, so A-Rod settled for a sacrifice fly. Sabathia had one of his best outings to date, seven innings of three-hit, one-run ball.

• July 8: A.J. Burnett struggled as he gave up seven hits and four walks, but that led to only two Minnesota runs and the Yankees pulled out a 4-3 victory. Gardner had another big hit, a two-run single to cap a three-run second inning, and A-Rod added a big RBI single in the fifth which proved to be the winning run.

• July 9: With Chien-Ming Wang on the injured list, the Yankees handed the ball to Alfredo Aceves, giving him the first audition to be the team’s fifth starter. However, he loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth and Girardi took him out, only to see Robertson walk in two runs. Thereafter, Jonathan Albaladejo, Coke, Phil Hughes and Rivera pitched 4.2 shutout innings and the Yankees finished the sweep with a 6-4 victory.

NEXT SATURDAY: To win a championship, you need the entire roster to contribute, and a shining example of that for the 2009 Yankees was this night against Baltimore when pitchers Sergio Mitre and Alfredo Aceves, who weren’t even on the team Opening Day, helped deliver the victory that sent the Yankees into first place for good.