Blown Save By Mariano Snaps 6 Game Winning Streak

Everything was going great for the Yankees until the 9th inning rolled around. Hiroki Kuroda pitched seven solid shutout innings. The offense had scored one run, just enough to keep them ahead for the most of the game. And Mariano Rivera was pitching the 9th, only two outs away from his 30th save.

But setting down Manny Machado on a ground out for the first out of the inning, Nick Markakis, who missed a game-tying homerun by a couple feet on the previous pitch, singled up the middle. Then, in a turn of events that seems to change the mood of the entire day, the Orioles offensive struck in one brief, quick moment.

Mariano threw a cutter on the inner-edge to Adams Jones, who made him pay by crushing a go-ahead, two-run homerun into the Baltimore bullpen to hand Mariano his 2nd blown loss of the season.

"You don't see it happen very often. That's the bottom line. He's been so good for us again this year," manager Joe Girardi said. "Every time it happens, you're kind of shocked. That's how good he is."

"I don't know exactly what the pitch was," Girardi said, "but I'm quite sure it wasn't where he wanted it."

"I wanted it to be more in. Didn't get in enough," Rivera said. "It wasn't really a mistake, just good hitting."

Rivera would eventually take the loss, and took all the attention away from Kuroda, who had pitched very well throughout the afternoon, taking the no-decision after pitching a win-worthy outing.

"The way Hiroki was pitching, I mean, he was doing outstanding. He did great. It would have been a good game to win," Rivera said. "This would have been a great game to save, and I didn't."

Nevering letting more than one O's batter reach base in any inning, Kuroda worked well all afternoon. He had just about all of his pitches working, doing his best to keep the ball down in the zone.

"I was trying to keep us in the ballgame," Kuroda said. "And with the one-run lead, I think I was able to do that."

Girardi pulled the plug on Kuroda's day after seven innings, permitting only three hits and a walk, while striking out four Birds on 88 pitches. His splitter was sharp and his fastball location was on point throughout the afternoon.

The Yankees used their bats to backup Kuroda, giving him only one run in support off of Baltimore's starter Jason Hammel, but they worked him well by racking up his pitch count, chasing him from the ballgame after only five innings.

Most of the damage, and the only run, came in a 32-pitch 2nd inning in which Zoilo Almonte worked an 11-pitch walk to begin the inning, then gave up a single to Lyle Overbay on the 10th pitch of the at-bat, moving Almonte to 3rd on the hit and run.

After a flyout by Luis Cruz, Eduardo Nunez, playing in his 2nd game off the DL, lined a ball deep enough to left field, letting Almonte score the only Yankee run.

From there. Kuroda took over, holding the Orioles bats silent up until he was removed from the game after the 7th inning. David Robertson did he best to earn some more All-Star game votes by throwing a 1-2-3 8th inning.

But after the blown save in the top of the inning, the Yankees went down swiftly in the bottom of the 9th against Jim Johnson to snap a six game winning streak and failing to pull off the sweep against their division counterpart.

"You don't want to go out there and get swept, especially against the teams in your division in games you need to win," Markakis said. "The way Kuroda threw the ball and, like I said, the conditions, we'll take it."

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