Teixeira ends HR drought in Yankees’ win
July 10, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)—Mark Teixeira’s(notes) career-long homer drought is finally over.
After sending a Francisco Liriano(notes) fastball some 420 feet into the Metrodomeseats on Thursday, Teixeira thinks his next long ball may not be far behind.
Teixeira ended a 23-game homerless stretch and the New York Yankeescompleted a season sweep of the Minnesota Twins with a 6-4 victory.
“I’m a streaky home run hitter, and they come in bunches,” Teixeira said.“And after hitting a bunch in a row it took a while to get another one.”
Teixeira, who managed to keep his average and on-base percentage highthrough his power outage, connected on the first pitch of the fifth inning. Itwas his 21st homer of the season and first in 96 at-bats, dating to June 12against the Mets.
Was it starting to wear on him?
“Not at all,” he said. “We’re playing so much great baseball. I’m gettingon base. I’m still hitting the ball; I’m just not getting that lift.
“The last couple of weeks, that ball that I hit would’ve been a line driveto the left fielder or maybe a nice hard single,” he added. “But once you geta little bit of a lift, a little bit of backspin, that’s when home runs startcoming.”
Mariano Rivera(notes) picked up his 23rd save for the Yankees, who have won eightstraight on the road and beat the Twins all seven times they met this season.
The win, coupled with Boston’s 8-6 loss to Kansas City, moved the Yankeesinto a tie for first place in the AL East with the Red Sox at 51-34. The Yankeesare in first place for the first time since entering the games of June 10.
Francisco Liriano (4-9) gave up six runs—three earned—on seven hits in 51-3 innings for the Twins, who have lost 18 of their past 24 games against theYankees.
Twins All-Star first baseman Justin Morneau(notes) was 0 for 4 and went 0 for 10 inthe series.
“They just pretty much dominated us at home,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhiresaid. “That’s not supposed to happen.”
New York moved Alfredo Aceves(notes) from the bullpen for a spot start in place ofthe injured Chien-Ming Wang(notes). Aceves gave up four runs—two charged to him whenreliever David Robertson(notes) walked Denard Span(notes) and Matt Tolbert(notes) with the basesloaded in the fourth—on four hits in 3 1-3 innings.
Robertson’s walks were the only hiccups for the sterling New York bullpen.The relievers combined to allow two hits and no runs over the final 5 2-3innings. Jonathan Albaladejo(notes) (4-1) pitched 1 2-3 hitless innings for the win.
“I thought it was going to come together right out of spring training, soit’s a little later than I thought actually because we’ve had to shuffle somepieces with guys to fit in,” manager Joe Girardi said. “They’ve doneeverything I’ve asked them to do. They haven’t said, ‘What’s my role?”’
It was another shaky outing for Liriano, who has been nowhere near thedominating performer he was before Tommy John surgery 2 1/2 years ago. Gardenhiresaid Liriano “is still learning to pitch with less stuff than he had before thesurgery.”
With the bases loaded and one out in the second, Liriano got ahead 0-2 onCody Ransom(notes). But Ransom worked a walk to score Alex Rodriguez(notes) for a 1-0 lead.
New York Yankees' Derek Je… AP – Jul 9, 4:53 pm EDT
“It’s kind of frustrating,” Liriano said. “I should have made some betterpitches, especially the 0-2 count. Too many pitches all over the place.”
Derek Jeter(notes) added an RBI single later in the inning to make it 3-0, with allthree runs unearned thanks to an error by second baseman Tolbert.
Liriano needed 55 pitches to get through the first two innings, two daysafter the Yankees squeezed 57 out of Scott Baker(notes) in the first two frames.
The Yankees gave two runs back in the second on errant throws. Aceves threwa ball away on a pickoff attempt at first base and Ransom had a throwing errorat third base as the Twins cut the deficit to 3-2.
Ransom and Brett Gardner(notes) had RBI singles in the fourth, and Robertsonsteeled himself after the two run-scoring walks. He got Joe Mauer(notes) to ground outwith the bases loaded to end the inning and keep the Yankees in the lead, 5-4.
“They just wore us down,” Gardenhire said.
NOTES: Twins starter Glen Perkins(notes), who missed his scheduled start onWednesday because of illness, was still feeling poorly on Thursday. NickBlackburn(notes) will start Friday against the White Sox and the Twins hope Perkinswill be ready for Saturday. … Girardi said A.J. Burnett(notes) will be the firststarter after the break, followed by CC Sabathia(notes), Joba Chamberlain(notes) and AndyPettitte(notes).
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