Baseball roundup: Thursday's action on the diamonds
Published Friday July 3rd, 2009
Russell Branyan ended his frustrating strikeout streak, and helped end the New York Yankees' seven game winning streak while he was at it..
Branyan belted a mammoth homer over Monument Park, and the Seattle Mariners beat CC Sabathia and the New York Yankees 8-4 on Thursday night.
"Majestic," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said.
Franklin Gutierrez also homered and Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-run double that was misplayed by centre-fielder Melky Cabrera. Chris Woodward added two RBIs as Seattle won in the Bronx for the first time since Sept. 3, 2007, ending a 10-game road losing streak against the Yankees.
"Our guys are learning how to win," reliever Miguel Batista said.
Branyan launched his 20th homer in the ninth inning, a two-run shot off right-hander Alfredo Aceves that made it 8-4. It was the first drive at the new Yankee Stadium to carom off the tinted-glass windows of the big sports bar in straightaway centre above Monument Park.
It also ended a rough stretch for Branyan, who struck out seven straight times in two nights - all against lefties - before drawing a walk from Sabathia in the sixth.
"I know it's just a matter of time before I come out of something like that," Branyan said. "In the grand scheme of things, it's just two days. If I can limit my bad at-bats to two days, I'll take it."
Seattle avoided a three-game sweep and handed Sabathia (7-5) his second loss in 11 starts.
"It was frustrating just because we were playing so well," Sabathia said. "It was just one of those days when I left some pitches up."
Elsewhere in the AL, Chicago beat Kansas City 4-1 and Los Angeles downed Baltimore 5-2.
At New York, Gutierrez had three hits for the third time in five games. Five of his eight homers have come in the past 15 games.
Batista (5-2) pitched two hitless innings to win in relief of ill starter Jason Vargas, who lasted four innings with flu symptoms. Wakamatsu appreciated the effort. He said Vargas was vomiting until about 3 a.m. Thursday.
Mark Lowe worked two scoreless innings before David Aardsma finished. Seattle's bullpen yielded three hits in five scoreless innings.
"A lot of unsung heroes today," Wakamatsu said.
Hideki Matsui homered and drove in three runs for New York, while Robinson Cano had three hits.
The first pitch was delayed 36 minutes due to threatening storms, though they never brought rain. Sabathia entered 6-1 with a 2.82 ERA in his previous 10 outings, but he struggled right from the start.
Suzuki opened the game with a line-drive double off Mark Teixeira's glove at first base. He stole third and scored on Jose Lopez's soft groundout between the mound and first.
It marked the first time the Yankees trailed since the top of the sixth inning June 24 in Atlanta.
Seattle began the second with three well-struck hits off Sabathia, including Gutierrez's leadoff homer. Woodward, subbing for injured third baseman Adrian Beltre, had a sacrifice fly.
Nick Swisher and Matsui hit sacrifice flies in the bottom half, cutting it to 3-2. Suzuki dropped Matsui's waist-high liner toward the right-field line, the third error this season for a player who has won eight consecutive Gold Gloves since arriving from Japan.
Moments later, as Suzuki lined up an inning-ending flyout, screaming fans tried to rattle him. After making the catch, Suzuki faked flipping the ball into the stands, drawing boos from the crowd of 46,142.
Woodward hit an RBI single in the fourth and Suzuki's double over Cabrera's head made it 6-2. Cabrera got a bad jump on the ball and it appeared he didn't realize how deep it was hit until it was too late.
"It looked like Melky kind of broke in on that ball," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "When you're playing so well, you're surprised when you're not so crisp."
Matsui's two-run homer in the bottom half trimmed it to 6-4.
White Sox 4 Royals 1
At Kansas City, Mark Buehrle was dominant into the ninth inning, allowing six hits and a run, and Chicago got its sixth straight victory.
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Angels 5 Orioles 2
At Anaheim, Claif., Bobby Abreu hit two home runs, John Lackey pitched eight solid innings as Los Angeles beat Baltimore.
NATIONAL LEAGUE:
Bee swarm can't bail out Padres in 7-1 loss to Astros
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Not even a ninth-inning invasion by a swarm of bees could bail out the San Diego Padres.
The Houston Astros beat the Padres 7-2 on Thursday, but only after waiting out a 52-minute delay in the top of the ninth inning caused when a swarm of bees took over left field at Petco Park.
It certainly gave a new meaning to getaway day.
"It's how this year's going. Bizarre things. You think you've seen it all in baseball and you're going to see something new," said Houston's Geoff Blum, who hit a three-run homer and finished with four RBIs.
The drama began with Houston leading 6-1 with two outs in the top of the ninth. San Diego's Kyle Blanks started walking in from left field, trying to get shortstop Everth Cabrera to call time.
It ended when a beekeeper obliterated a ball of bees that followed a queen bee under a ball girl's jacket that was slung over the back of a chair down the left-field line.
"I kind of saw one or two floating around my head," Blanks said. "Then I turned around and there was a wall. I started to walk in and tried to get Everth to call time."
Blanks said he was allergic to bees. "It's not something I want to tempt," he said.
He wondered what would happen if Miguel Tejada pulled a ball down the line.
"It was a pretty thick wall of bees and I really didn't want a piece of it," he said.
"The umpires made the right call to stop the game," Padres president Tom Garfinkel said. "There's a couple thousand bees there. If they decide to swarm on a person, whether that's a player, an employee or obviously a fan, we could have a real situation."
Elsewhere in the NL it was: Cincinnati 3 Arizona 2 (10 innings); Atlanta 5 Philadelphia 2; St. Louis 5 San Francisco 2; New York 9 Pittsburgh 8 (10 innings); and Chicago 9 Milwaukee 5.
At San Diego, the game was halted at 3:09 p.m. and five minutes later, both teams were cleared from the field.
The beekeeper arrived at 3:56 p.m., quickly did his job to applause from the fans that remained, and the game resumed five minutes later.
The swarm first appeared along the warning track. Later, fans were cleared out of several sections down the left-field line as the bees swarmed around the chair.
Head groundskeeper Luke Yoder thinks they were regular honey bees. Groundskeepers thought about putting a trash can over the chair, but didn't want to take the chance in case they were Africanized honey bees.
"It looked harmless, but let me tell you there was a big ball of bees under that jacket," Yoder said. "Every one of those bees you saw in the outfield, every single one of them went underneath that jacket."
Yoder said he's seen similar swarms at the downtown ballpark, some the size of a soccer ball, but just not during games.
The bees arrived more than 24 hours before Manny Ramirez makes his comeback from a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy, when the Los Angeles Dodgers open a three-game series against San Diego on Friday night.
"Definitely a first time for me," Houston manager Cecil Cooper said. "I didn't know what happened initially. I just saw the guy walking in. I didn't know exactly what he was doing. Then I started to see kind of the swarm after a while.
"You don't want to get anybody hurt. That's the main thing."
The Astros outscored the Padres 20-7 in taking three of four. It's the first time the Astros (38-39) have been one game under .500 since they were 1-2 on April 8.
San Diego has lost eight of nine games against Houston dating to last season.
Wandy Rodriguez (7-6) beat the Padres for the second time in as many starts this year, holding them to one run and seven hits in seven innings. He struck out five and walked two.
Blum, a former Padres player, gave the Astros a 6-0 lead when he homered to right on a 2-1 pitch with one out in the fifth, his second. Tejada opened the inning with a single and Lance Berkman - one of the "Killer Bs" along with the now-retired Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio - followed with a walk.
"It was a good series for us," Cooper said. "Everybody contributed for us. For the first day in a long time, we got a big, big hit to kind of break things open."
Blum also hit an RBI single in the first. Berkman scored three runs, had two doubles, two walks and an RBI.
The Padres loaded the bases on a single and consecutive walks with none out in the third and the heart of the order coming up, and failed to score. Adrian Gonzalez forced Kevin Correia at the plate and Kevin Kouzmanoff hit into a double play.
Correia (5-6) allowed six runs and eight hits in five innings. He struck out three and walked three.
With ace Jake Peavy and Chris Young both on the disabled list, Correia had been San Diego's most consistent starter. He was 4-1 in his previous five starts, with a 2.41 ERA and 29 strikeouts.
Reds 3 Diamondbacks 2 (10 innings)
At Cincinnati, Toronto native Joey Votto singled with the bases loaded and two outs in the 10th inning as the Reds beat Arizona.
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Braves 5 Phillies 2
At Atlanta, Matt Diaz drove in the go-ahead run with an eighth-inning double and the Braves completed their first home sweep of Philadelphia in four years.
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Cardinals 5 Giants 2
At St. Louis, Todd Wellemeyer rebounded from his shortest start of the season with 7 1-3 solid innings for the Cardinals.
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Mets 9 Pirates 8 (10 innings)
At Pittsburgh, Ryan Church singled in the go-ahead run in the 10th inning for New York, which overcame a five-run deficit and then wasted a ninth-inning lead.
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Cubs 9 Brewers 5
At Chicago, Derrek Lee hit a grand slam and a three-run homer for a career-high seven RBIs for the Cubs.
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