推 jjsakurai:pitch his tail off是什麼意思? 04/25 14:11
推 niceta:已經盡全力投球的意思 04/25 14:58
Skid hits five after bullpen falters
Wang delivers solid performance in first start of '07
By Dawn Klemish / MLB.com
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- One positive run came to a halt on Tuesday night
while another, more troubling one surged ahead.
Alex Rodriguez saw his Yankees-record 18-game hitting streak end at Tropicana
Field. The third baseman went 0-for-3 and did not add to his record 14 home
runs for April, but thanks to a first-inning walk, he has still reached base
in each of the 19 games this season.
The homerless night in and of itself was enough disappointment, but it was
coupled with the fact that, with the 6-4 loss to Tampa Bay, New York was
swept in its last two road series.
The defeat ran the Yankees' losing streak to five games, put them in the
American League East cellar and made for a very quiet postgame clubhouse.
"This is where you really test your mettle here; this is the tough part about
playing our game," manager Joe Torre said. "This is where you earn your
money. You have to turn this thing around and not get wallowed up in
self-pity. That's something that's not acceptable. It won't happen. It hasn't
happened."
Too often lately, the Yankees have looked to their bullpen after their
starters made hasty retreats to the showers. Chien-Ming Wang pleasantly
surprised more than a few in his season debut, though. Torre admitted being
curious about how his right-hander would perform, but once he observed all
the induced grounders in the first inning, he knew that Wang was going to
have a good day.
Wang gave 6 1/3 strong innings to keep the Yankees in the game until he
reached his predetermined 80-pitch count. Even then Wang, who started for New
York for the first time since he was sidelined with a strained left
hamstring, said that he'd gladly have gone longer if given the option.
"I wanted to go back out there [for the seventh inning]," Wang said. "I felt
good."
Wang was replaced by Luis Vizcaino after he'd given up a single and a double
in the seventh. Vizcaino, in turn, intentionally walked the bases loaded to
pave the way for teammate Mike Myers. New York had a 3-2 lead at that point
and hopes of ending a sour road trip on an upswing. That's when things took a
bad turn.
It took just one flat breaking ball to Carl Crawford for the Yankees to go
from having the upper hand to being at the bottom looking up.
"[I left] a breaking ball over the plate, and it's something that's very easy
to hit," said Myers of the seventh-inning pitch he watched sail out of the
park for a grand slam. "[Crawford] hit it well, and I was just hoping [it
would] get to the wall and that'd be about it, but he put the bat on the
ball. He hit a mistake, and that's what you're supposed to do with it."
The breaking ball turned a 3-2 advantage into a 6-3 hole. Hideki Matsui, who
hit his first homer of the year in the second inning to put New York up 1-0,
drove in a run in the eighth, but it was too little, too late. New York
tacked one more defeat to its longest losing streak since it suffered six
straight losses from May 28 to June 3, 2005.
With six straight losses away from home, the Yankees are now in the middle of
their longest road skid since losing nine straight from Sept. 19 to Oct. 1,
2000. It's a pattern they're eager to break.
"Wang, literally, pitched his tail off," Torre said. "We're certainly pleased
with that, and we let one get away. It's been a tough trip in that regard.
We've had opportunities to win most of the games, but we just couldn't close
the deal.
"We're just going through a bad streak right now and we just need to turn it
around. Nobody's going to help us; we're going to have to do it ourselves."
Torre mentioned holding a team meeting on Wednesday to discuss New York's
upcoming opponent, Toronto, as well as to deliver a message, something he
tries to do each series. This time, he said, it may have some added
perspective.
"The only thing I can tell this ballclub is that you can't start forcing it,
you have to just continue doing what you're doing," he said. "You can only do
what you do. If you're out there trying to carry the weight of the world on
your shoulders, it's going to come back and bite you."
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