MINNEAPOLIS – Of course there are no guarantees Joba Chamberlain wouldn’t have cost the Yankees a game last night. Yet, whenever a relief situation surfaces in which Chamberlain could have been used, but isn’t because he is a starter, it adds fuel to the biggest sports debate in New York.
With Chamberlain home in New Jersey resting for his initial big-league start tonight at Yankee Stadium, Yankee manager Joe Girardi summoned Kyle Farnsworth in the eighth inning with the score tied at 5 between the Yanks and Twins. Five pitches later, Delmon Young spanked an RBI double that carried the Twins past the Yankees, 6-5, in front of 20,168 at the Metrodome.
There was more to the 28-29 Yankees’ second straight loss than Farnsworth (0-2). Andy Pettitte was staked to three leads and flushed them, and the Yankees were 3-for-16 with runners in scoring position and left 10 men on base.
So a seven-game road trip that started with two losses before three straight wins ended with a 3-4 ledger.
“We should have had a much better record on this road trip,” Girardi said. “I am not happy.”
Pettitte was miserable about giving back three leads.
“I am extremely disgusted with the way I performed,” said Pettitte, who gave up five runs (four earned) and 10 hits in seven innings. “The team gave me a lead three times. It’s unacceptable.”
The 2-0 lead Alex Rodriguez‘s two-run homer provided in the first was gone by the third. Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon gave Pettitte a 4-2 cushion with RBI singles in the sixth. That disappeared in sixth when Craig Monroe and Young drove in runs.
Rodriguez (3-for-4) doubled and scored in the seventh for a 5-4 advantage. Pettitte retired the first two Twins in the seventh, then watched left-handed hitting Joe Mauer punish a 1-1 pitch on the inner half for a homer to right.
“That’s as ignorant a pitch I can throw,” Pettitte said of the four-seam fastball he wanted more in. “It was a crucial mistake on my part. It’s stupid.”
After right fielder Michael Cuddyer threw out Derek Jeter trying to stretch a single into a double for the second out of the eighth, the Yankees had a chance in the ninth against Joe Nathan.
Rodriguez singled to start the inning, but Hideki Matsui hit into a double play and Jason Giambi lined to center for the final out.
“We felt like the game was ours but it wasn’t meant to be,” said Damon, who killed a threat in the fourth by banging into a double play.
Twins 6 Yankees 5
