Tigers 2 – Yankees 1
DETROIT – Paul O’Neill was talking about his miserable weekend but he could have easily been describing the Yankees’ inaugural excursion to Comerica Park, a visit they would like to forget.
“I just absolutely stunk,” O’Neill said yesterday after the Tigers swept a three-game series from the offensively-challenged Yankees with a 2-1 victory in front of 31,313.
O’Neill wasn’t good, going 2-for-11. But he homered and drove in two runs. However, compared to the other Men Without Bats, O’Neill’s stick was smoking.
Scott Brosius, who made the final out of yesterday’s game by flying harmlessly to right on a Todd Jones slider with runners on first and third, went 2-for-13. Jorge Posada matched O’Neill’s 2-for-11. Ricky Ledee went 0-for-8, Chuck Knoblauch 3-for-13 and Clay Bellinger 1-for-8. As a team, the Yankees hit .240 against a Tigers staff that started C.J. Nitkowski, Jeff Weaver and Dave Mlicki, a trio that entering the series was 1-15. In the final two games, the Yankees batted .197 (13-for-66), with all 13 hits being singles. The dismal weekend hitting performance followed a 1-0 loss to the Devil Rays at the Stadium on Thursday.
“The ball is juiced everywhere except where we are playing,” quipped O’Neill.
Coupled with the Red Sox spanking the Orioles, 10-1, yesterday’s defeat dropped the Yankees into second place, one-half game behind the Bosox in the AL East. As recently as Thursday, the bulge over the surging Red Sox was 3 ½ lengths.
The 22-13 Yankees hope they rebound from losing three straight to the Tigers the same way they did a year ago when they ran off six consecutive wins and eight of 10 after losing a weekend series at Tiger Stadium in April.
Making yesterday’s loss hurt more was David Cone’s best start of the season being wasted. Cone allowed two runs and eight hits in seven innings. Still, he absorbed the loss and fell to 2-3.
“I was OK,” said Cone, who appears to have righted himself after a rocky beginning, posting a 3.07 ERA in his last two starts. “I tried to keep us close but [Mlicki] was outstanding. I got outpitched.”
Joe Torre didn’t lose sleep over Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte getting beat, 9-7, and 6-3, in the first two games because Torre firmly believes the Yankees have enough pitching.
“The unfortunate thing is that I can put those other two losses away,” Torre said. “But when you have a pitching performance like we had from David, you hate to waste that.”
Even though Mlicki was 0-5 with a 7.25 ERA, the potential to do what the veteran right-hander did was there since he beat the Yankees with a complete-game shutout in the first interleague game between the Yankees and Mets in 1997.
“Every time we have seen him, he has looked good to us,” Cone lamented.
Mlicki kept the Yankees off balance with an effective changeup. When he finally tired in the ninth and surrendered back-to-back two-out walks to Tino Martinez and Posada, Tigers manager turned it over to Jones, who gave up an RBI single to Shane Spencer before retiring Brosius to end it.
After giving up the first of Spencer’s three singles in the second inning, Mlicki retired the next 16 Yankees before Spencer singled to center with two outs in the seventh.
The Yankees paid for wasting Posada’s leadoff walk in the second that was followed by Spencer’s single. Brosius moved the runners up with a grounder to Mlicki but Bellinger’s grounder to Dean Palmer resulted in Posada being thrown out at the plate. Mlicki stranded the two runners by getting Knoblauch on a routine grounder to second.
Brad Ausmus’ one-out double in the third turned into the game’s first run when Juan Gonzalez dumped a bloop single in front of Bernie Williams.
The Tigers’ other run came in the fifth. Deivi Cruz, the No. 9 hitter, led off with a double to left and moved to third on a passed ball. Two batters later, Juan Encarnacion’s soft single to right made it 2-0.
Going into yesterday’s action, the Yankees were ranked next to last in runs scored among AL teams with 165 in 34 games. The lack of scoring was masked over by a deep and effective bullpen.
However, after sub-par efforts from Clemens and Pettitte and wasting a dandy by Cone, the warts are showing.
“I think we are a little flat right now,” said Bernie Williams, who went 5-for-12 but didn’t drive a run. “We have gone through periods where we go up and down offensively. It’s different this year because we usually find a way to win. This year we are struggling a little more because we are not finding it.”
