CLEVELAND – Nothing had been easy, nothing had been a given the first half of the season for the Yankees.
One might think a 10-run lead after 4 ½ innings would flip that script but, no, not Sunday afternoon.
And so the Bombers managed to insert some drama even into that circumstance, though they did accomplish from, their perspective, the most important outcome.
That would be a victory, an 11-7 slugfest over the AL Central-leading Indians that dragged on for nearly four hours in front of 29,089 at Progressive Field.
It allowed the Yankees to take three of four here and pull into the All-Star break at .500.
What that achievement means cannot yet be determined.
The Yankees (44-44) open the second half with a 10-game homestand against two teams in front of them in the East (Boston and Baltimore), followed by NL West-leading San Francisco.
They finished this 10-game, three-city trip 5-5.
Sunday was highlighted by poor starting pitching and poor glove work across the board, coming to a head in the fifth inning, a 46-minute slog that featured a combined 12 runs.
The Yankees scored six times in the top half to take an 11-1 lead and the Indians scored that many in the bottom half to make it 11-7.
Masahiro Tanaka, pitching on regular rest, could not make it through the inning. Overall, the righthander allowed seven runs (three earned) and 10 hits over 4 1/3 innings.
Nathan Eovaldi, recently pulled from the rotation, settled the game down, taking over for Tanaka with two outs in the fifth and pitching 4 1/3 scoreless innings. The righthander allowed one hit and three walks. He struck out three.
The Indians (52-36) came in one of baseball’s hottest teams, led by the AL’s top rotation, but did not perform like it. In any capacity.
Sunday it was a subpar Carlos Carrasco, who came in 5-2 with a 2.47 ERA but struggled commanding his pitches. The righthander was also victimized by a defense behind him that committed two errors that contributed to four of the five runs he allowed over 3 2/3 innings being unearned. Cleveland committed three errors overall and should have been charged with four.
The big blow against Carrasco was Jacoby Ellsbury’s two-out, three-run homer in a four-run second – one of the runs was earned – that made it 4-0.
The Yankees had 12 hits through five innings, five of them in the six-run fifth that also saw another critical Indians error. They had 13 hits in total compared to 11 for the Indians.
Taking the mound with an 11-1 lead, Tanaka had nothing on his pitches. Carlos Santana started the rally with a double and Tyler Naquin finished it with a two-run homer that made it 11-7. Naquin never should have made it to the plate, however, as the batter preceding him, Rajai Davis, reached on a two-out throwing error by Didi Gregorius.
- Newsday