Alex Rodriguez & A.J. Burnett disappoint the Yankees
The fans had been waiting whole day for the 600th home run by Alex Rodriguez, but were disappointed and left unhappy. Moreover Burnett scored an 8 e-a-r.
This was Yankees first game after a gap of seven days on the road. The game took place at the Yankee Stadium on Monday. The fans sitting in the left field bleachers waited all day long but not a single home run was delivered resulting into a failure for the Yankees by 8-6.
By now, the Yankees should have got accustomed to A.J. Burnett’s instability of temper. A.J Burnett is not a normal pitcher who shows consistency with his swings. He also does not give warning signals when he is about to charge.
Yesterday when Yankees’ lost to Blue Jays by 8-6, A.J Burnett was on fire in the first innings. However, he switched it on and off during the session but his seven runs in one inning surely gave Yankees the warning signal.
For the first four innings, A.J Burnett resembled to a pitcher who had flipped scoreless outings once each of his past two times out. A.J Burnett's knuckle-curve lacked consistency. He used it 15 times in the first four innings and three times for strikes. It seemed like he had a different strategy when he relied more on his sinkers. This sharp sinker gave him two hits and a lone run on a Vernon Wells homer.
Moving forward, the fifth inning was a bit different. During the first four innings, the requirements for Burnett were to pitch for 28 minutes and deliver 54 pitches. However in the fifth inning the requirements had changed and now they were 27 minutes on the mound to deliver 46 pitches, rest 41 pitches were to be delivered by Sergio Mitre.
The fifth inning concluded with six Toronto hits off by A.J Burnett, a two-run homer from Edwin Encarnacion and five doubles on the whole. It was A.J Burnett’s sinkers that allowed only seven runs in the session and turned Yankees’ 2-1 lead into an 8-2 loss.
According to the experts, this is a very inconsistent season for Burnett. His starting 4 innings were on fire but all of a sudden he surrendered six extra-base hits in the fifth inning which reminds of the time when he was still a rookie.
Moreover when Burnett started his career he was on a roll. That was early July; he started off with a 3-1 with a 2.00 earned run average, although a month earlier he even had an 11.35 earned run average. A.J Burnett has been constantly improving except for this match against Blue Jays where he had 8 e-a-r, eight hits and two walks while striking out four in two-thirds innings. The worst came later when Blue Jays smashed six hits composed of five doubles and a two-run home run by Edwin Encarnacion.
However, by the last minutes of the bottom half 11 batters of the Yankees had been sent home by the Blue Jays, and they had delivered only seven runs.
According to A.J Burnett, he was not comfortable with his inability to control his sinker which was the reason behind Yankees downfall.
A,J Burnett initially tried limiting extra-base hits, by keeping the ball in the ballpark, however by the end of the bottom half of this statement became opposite.
Discussing Rodriguez’s batting, he has not hit a single home run since July 22nd when he made his 599th homer against Kansas City. This spell of no home run has dragged on a little too long. Throughout the seven-game road trip to Cleveland and Tampa Bay, Rodriguez was a total failure. This problem of no home runs at all is not something new for Rodriguez. It has happened before as well between from April 20th to May 9th, where he went 61 at-bats without a single home run. Moreover, the last season was the most massive disastrous drought for the home runs; he went 72 straight at-bats without hitting a homer.
Yankees have lost and the sole reason behind this disappointment is A.J Burnett‘s lost grip on his sinkers and Alex Rodriguez’s dry spell of making no home runs.
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