Gardner Gets Ejected, Yanks Lose 4-2

BOSTON -- Andy Pettitte wasn't happy with the way he's been pitching lately. After tonight, I don't think he came any closer to happiness. Pettitte allowed at least four runs for the seventh straight outing, giving up a pair of homeruns to Jacoby Ellsbury and Johnny Gomes in a 4-2 loss to the Red Sox.

"This ain't easy," said Pettitte. "It's a tough lineup. Those guys are good over there. They can hit the ball. You're trying to battle as best you can."

Ellsbury kicked off his second half of the season with a homerun to right field on the second pitch he saw from Pettitte in the first inning. Gomes added to the lead in the second inning with a two-run blast over the monster to put Boston up 3-0.

Facing Felix Doubront, who's had success against the Yankees in his career, the Yanks' bats weren't doing much through the first five innings, not joining the hit-column until Lyle Overbay doubled off the monster to open the 5th.

Chris Stewart brought Overbay around to score a couple batter later when he he, too, doubled off the monster to pull the Yankees within one, making it a 3-2 game.

After allowing the homerun to Gomes in the second, Pettitte settled down nicely to continue on through the game until running into some trouble in the 7th inning. Gomes double to lead off, then Pettitte induced a groundout from Jarrod Saltalamacchia, leading Girardi to make the move to the pen.

Pettitte, like I said, didn't have his best stuff early on in the game, but settled down to give up only one run after the second inning, permitting four runs on six hits, while walking one and striking out four in 6 1/3.

"It's got to change," Pettitte said. "I can't keep going out there and giving up two, three, four runs in the first inning and second inning. I feel too good."

Unlucky for Girardi and the Yankees, the bullpen was to sharp. Shawn Kelley retired Brock Holt on a grounder back at him, then threw a wild pitch to the backstop, advancing Gomes to third. Then after battling off a few pitches, Jose Iglesias bloopped a single into right field to put the Six up by two.

The lead would be big enough for Boston as they went on the shutdown the Yankees quietly in the 9th to close out the 4-2 victory. With the win, they extended their lead over the Yankees in the AL East to seven games.

"It's one night. You can't make too much of it, but obviously this is an important stretch for us that we're in, and we understand that," Girardi said. "The next three teams we play are all in front of us, and that's really important, so we need to play well."

Brett Gardner, who scored the Yankees first run in the 4th inning after stealing second and third, leading to a ball thrown into left field that lead him to score, was ejected from the game from slamming his helmet to the ground in anger after being called out on strikes.

"This is a big game, it's the middle of the game, it's a one-run game, and I've got do a better job of keeping my emotions in check," Gardner said. "But today I didn't. I wish I had done things differently and stayed in the ballgame."

Zoilo Almonte left the game in the 5th inning with a right ankle sprain that he suffered while trying to beat out a double play ball in the 2nd inning. X-Rays came back negative, but Girardi announced after the game that Almonte would be placed on the DL and corresponding move would be made on Sunday.

"It started hurting right away after the play, but I did try to run on it to see if it would get better," Almonte said.

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