Aaaaaaaand it's gone. The Kansas City Royals came in, and the Yankees made them look like a Playoff team. Which they were, only 4 seasons ago, winning the World Series, and a Pennant the year before that. But they lost 104 games last year, and were 6-12 coming into last night's game.
Thus far, the Yankees had gotten away with using Domingo German as a starting pitcher. Maybe they would have gotten away with it again, had they hit. But he went 6 innings allowing 3 runs on 6 hits, no walks and 9 strikeouts.
That sounds pretty good, until you realize that he gave up 2 home runs and an RBI double. And that the next pitcher, Jonathan Holder, didn't get the job done, either.
At any rate, the Yankees didn't hit. Aaron Judge singled in the bottom of the 1st, Luke Voit singled him over to 3rd, and Gleyber Torres got him home with a sacrifice fly to center. But that was it: Voit and Torres were stranded, Clint Frazier was stranded on 1st after a leadoff error, Frazier was stranded again after a 2-out hit in the 4th, another runner was stranded in the 5th, and Mike Ford drew a 7th-inning walk but was erased on a double play.
Ford was making his major league debut, as the designated hitter and wearing Number 36, which has belonged to such Yankees as Johnny Mize, Dock Ellis, Jim Kaat, David Cone, Nick Johnson and Carlos Beltran. And Ian Kennedy, who was the last pitcher of the game for the Royals last night.
Ford is a local guy, a 6-foot-even, 225-pound, lefthanded-hitting, righthanded-throwing native of the ritzy Belle Mead section of Montgomery Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. Belle Mead is so ritzy! (How ritzy is it?) In 1980, during the "Who Shot J.R.?" saga on the TV drama Dallas, one of the variety shows that decided to parody the story -- in this case, it was "Who did not shoot R.J.?" (Who had blanks in his gun?) -- titled the sketch Belle Mead.
As George M. Cohan famously said about himself -- lying, he was actually born on July 3, 1878 -- Mike Ford is "a real life nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July," in his case in 1992, making him almost 27, He attended the prestigious Hun School, a prep school in nearby Princeton, Mercer County, and then Princeton University. In 2013, he was named Ivy League Player of the Year.
He had good seasons in the Yankee farm system in 2017 and 2018, and was batting .410 at Triple-A Scranton when he was called up. Although he pitched as recently as Princeton, and was the DH last night, his natural position is 1st base.
In the 9th, down by 5, the Yankees tried to ride the "Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety" cliche after Voit drew a leadoff walk. But Torres struck out, and DJ LeMahieu popped up. Frazier singled, but Ford struck out to end it, leaving Frazier stranded for the 3rd time in the game. We certainly can't blame him for last night going wrong. Or Ford: Never pick on a rookie when he's down.
Royals 6, Yankees 1. WP: Homer Bailey (2-1). No save. LP: German (3-1).
The series continues tonight. CC Sabathia starts against Jakob Junis. Come on, Yankees, get some runs!
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