By STEVE GOLDMAN
For the Star Beacon
CLEVELAND —
The Indians have been playing some of the American League’s better teams tooth-and-nail since the All-Star break, winning most of their games in the process. Wednesday’s contest, however, didn’t live up to that type of standard.
The New York Yankees battered Fausto Carmona, making him take his earliest exit of the year, in an 8-0 victory that gave them a 2-1 lead in the four-game series.
The start of the game was delayed 42 minutes by rain, then took 3:20 to play.
New York, which at 64-36 has the best record in the majors, maintained its 21⁄2 game lead over Tampa Bay in the AL East division.
The Yankees ripped Carmona for seven runs on 10 hits in just 2.2 innings. Altogether they collected 13 hits, with everyone in the lineup hitting safely with the exception of Derek Jeter, who ironically tops the team’s career list in that category.
Meanwhile, A.J. Burnett (9-8, 4.52 ERA) scattered seven hits and three walks in 6.1 innings while striking out seven. He allowed the leadoff batter to reach base in each of the first five innings, but escaped damage every time.
Alex Rodriguez didn’t hit his 600th home run, but he did go 2-for-5 while knocking in the game’s initial run with a first-inning single.
New York added three-spots in the second and third. In the second, consecutive one-out hits by Curtis Granderson, Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner combined to produce the first run and Mark Teixeira singled home a pair of runs one out later.
Granderson tripled off the left center-field wall to bring home the initial tally in the third. A Gardner two-bagger and Nick Swisher’s single provided the other runs in that frame.
“Fausto just didn’t have it today,” manager Manny Acta said. “For some reason, everything was very hard. We could tell that there wasn’t very much difference between his fastball and his changeup, and that’s not very good.
“For some reason, he was throwing his changeup and his slider a couple miles per hour faster today, and the lefties were taking advantage of it.”
Robinson Cano hit a solo shot off Hector Ambriz to extend it to 8-0 in the fourth.
Carmona is now 10-8 with a 3.92 ERA.
Joba Chamberlain and Sergio Mitre finished up for the Yankees, and gave up one more hit between them for a total of eight.
Jess Todd, Frank Herrmann and Tony Sipp also pitched for the Tribe (42-59), combining to shut New York out over the final four innings by retiring the final 12 Yankee batters. Trevor Crowe had three hits for Cleveland.
Goldman is a freelance writer from South Euclid.
