Yanks Fall The The Giants 2-1 On Mariano Rivera Day

Today was all about Mariano Rivera. The Yankees honored him for about 50-minutes before Sunday's game, retiring his number, giving him gifts, and there was even a live performance of "Enter sandman" by Metallica.

But there was still a game to be played, and Andy Pettitte was apart of it, taking the mound for the Yankees in his final start at Yankee Stadium, and possibly the final start of his career as he will retire at the end of the season.

The day that started out in celebration by the Yankees had turned into celebration by the San Francisco Giants after taking the lead in the 8th inning with a double off David Robertson, ruining Mariano Rivera Day in the Bronx, as the Yankees fell to the Giants 2-1 in the series finale.

"It's hard to believe that we're sitting here and that we lost another game," said Pettitte. "This was a big loss, there's no doubt about it. We've got to try to pull off a miracle here."

Pettitte was sharp to start the game, he was attacking hitters and running through innings fairly quickly, as he was nearly perfect through the first five innings before issuing a walk to Pablo Sandoval with two outs in the 5th.

Even without the perfect game, Pettitte still had a no-hitter going into the 6th inning, but it was broken up after Ehire Adrianza hit a solo homerun to left field off Pettitte, giving the Giants their first hit, as well as breaking up the shutout with one swing.

There was only one thing hurting Pettitte throughout the afternoon, and it was that the Yankees weren't scoring him any runs. The only run put up by the Yanks was a solo homerun by Mark Reynolds in the 3rd inning off Giants starter Yusmeiro Petit, who was pretty effective on the mound, giving up just the one run on six hits, while striking out seven over 6.1 innings.

With 102 pitches through seven innings, Yankees manager Joe Girardi sent Pettitte back out for the 8th inning, but after giving up a double to Sandoval to open the inning, Girardi called for Robertson out of the bullpen, giving up Pettitte a chance to let the Yankee Stadium crowd give him one last standing ovation.

"It was a great moment for me and I really enjoyed it," Pettitte said. "I was glad I got the opportunity to do that, and the fans were awesome, just like they've always been to me."

Pettitte was great, but didn't get much help behind him. He only gave up one run on two hits, while walking one and striking out six on 104 pitches over seven plus innings in his final home start in pinstripes.

Robertson, the Yankees' likely closer of the future, came up big for the other team once again, getting a groundout to start his day before giving up a double to Tony Abreu to score pinch-runner Nick Noonan from second base. Girardi saw enough of Robertson, forcing him to bring in the man of the hour, Rivera.

"I feel like I let everybody down," Robertson said. "I let Andy down."

Mariano, this time entering to the recorded version of "Enter Sandman", quickly retired the first two hitters he face in the 8th to end the inning, then after the first two Giants hitters reached base to start the 9th, he set the next three down, including a double play to end the 9th.

Rivera helped keep the Yankees in the game, but the offense also helped keep the Giants winning this game, as they had several chances throughout the afternoon to put some runs on the board, like in the 8th when they had runners on 2nd and 3rd to start the inning, but Zoilo Almonte ran himself out at home for the first out, then a few batters later, Robinson Cano was thrown out at home on a base hit by Eduardo Nunez to end the inning.

"Sometimes we make mistakes, and that's the way it is," Yankees third-base coach Rob Thomson said. "He was being aggressive, he saw something and he reacted to it."

The loss sets the Yankees back to four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Indians in the Wild Card race after both of those teams won on Sunday, and with six games left to play for the Bombers, the Yanks and Rays open up a make or break three-game set in the Bronx on Tuesday.

"We're still alive, obviously, but this one really hurts," Girardi said. "It's tough."

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