New York Yankees’ 2011 MLB Regular Season journey – Part 4
A defeat from the Boston Red Sox was serious but the Yankees had to come out of shock, as there was a long journey to complete. They flied back to their home at Yankee Stadium to host the Baltimore Orioles, According to the experts, it was an easy task for
the Yankees, but Girardi was not ready to allow his camp to rest.
Automatically one-day rest came to the Yankees’ way when the first outing of the series on April 12 was postponed because of heavy rain. It was a blessing for the injured Yankees.
The club then entered the field to take on the Orioles for the first time in the season on April 13. Allan James Burnett took the responsibility to crush the weak batting line-up of the opposition. Burnett started brilliantly and held the opposition scoreless
until the sixth inning. He struck-out five batters and allowed only two walks to take the Yankees into a 7-4 win.
Burnett might have tossed his first complete game if he had not gone into wild pitching in the seventh inning. He gave away two successive homers and Girardi called him off the mound. It was the third consecutive win for the right-hand hurler.
"If they come out swinging the bats like that -- I got a four-run lead -- I can just take a breath and go at it," Burnett said.
The Yankees batting, which had not made any special performance in the last outing against the Red Sox, got their impetus back and scored six runs in the first two innings for a 6-0 lead. Alex Rodriguez launched a three-run homer in the first and then Derek
Jeter and Robinson Cano each earned RBIs.
After a dominant win, the Yankees must have thought of their easy win on the second day, but the Orioles recuperated and forced the game into a tenth inning. However, the Yankees won the close confrontation 6-5 and the series 2-0.
Orioles decided to attack the wounded starter Phil Hughes and then scored five runs and touched seven hits against the pitcher in his four innings. Orioles were leading 5-0 and Girardi was not in mood to throw away the outing.
He employed his strong pitcher Bartolo Colon on the mound and asked his batters to make something special at the plate. Colon halted the Orioles’ hitting and batters began their display.
Robinson Cano broke down the spell and he scored an RBI single in the bottom of the fifth inning. Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez each added an RBI to reduce the lead to 3-5 in the bottom of the sixth. Russell Martin shortened it to 4-5 and Jorge Posada
launched a one-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to drag the outing to an extra inning.
Mariano Rivera was at the mound to defend the top of the tenth and he managed to get his first win of the season. Nick Swisher hit a sacrifice fly to right, advancing the Yankees into an exciting win.
Girardi said, "Our guys kept kinda chippin' away, and then we get the big homer from Jorge in the ninth and then the walk to Tex and the double by Alex to start the inning off. But our guys have the ability to do that."
Yankees’ manager made this statement after the outing. The start of the 2011 regular season was not bad for the Yankees. They had won three of their first four series and now they were to host the Texas Rangers.
Continued in Part 5
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