Yankees 3, Indians 9: Bullpen implodes to give up seven unanswered runs

The Yankees took a 3-0 lead over the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night. Sometime around the 6th inning, Brian Cashman held a conference call with reporters to announce that Masahiro Tanaka has been diagnosed with a partial tear of his UCL. That's when things started go south for the Bombers.

The Indians put up four runs in the 7th inning against David Phelps and Matt Thornton to take a one-run lead, and nine runs unanswered in all, as they would defeat the Yankees, 9-3, in the final game of a four-game series at Progressive Field.

Zelous Wheeler put the Yankees on the board in the top of 4th inning with a solo homerun to left field, just curving it around the foul pole for a two-run shot that gave the Yanks a 2-0 lead. The homerun -- Wheeler's second since being called up last week -- brought in Francisco Cervelli, who hit a one-out single to reach base.

Cervelli would scored the Yankees' third run of the night an inning later, making it a 3-0 game. TJ House, who was lifted after giving up three runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings, hit Cervelli on the right knee with a wild slider, putting him on first base with two outs. Wheeler singled to keep the two-out rally going, putting runners on first and second base, then Yangervis Solarte, who was called up from Triple-A before the game after the Yankees put Carlos Beltran on the 7-day concussion DL, brought back the Solarte Party with an RBI single to left field.

Phelps was doing a great job of protecting the Yankees' lead and keeping them in the game for most of the night. He gave up a hit in each of the first five innings, but nothing more then that. The worst inning of Phelps' night was the one that ended it, when he Chris Dickerson and Roberto Perez opened the 7th inning with back-to-back singles. Joe Girardi decided that was enough, taking the ball from Phelps and giving it to Matt Thornton.

Phelps lasted six-plus innings, he was charged with two runs on seven hits, with three walks and five strikeouts. Phelps has been pitching a lot better over the past couple of weeks, and it was a shame that he couldn't get the win for this outing tonight.

Jason Kipnis reached on an infield single against Thornton to load the bases, then a batter later, Asdrubal Cabrera hit a bases-clearing triple to tie the game at 3-3. Michael Brantley followed with a sac-fly to center field that scored Cabrera, putting the Indians up 4-3. It only got worse from there.

That was the end of Thornton's night. I though he would be a decent arm in the bullpen this season, replacing Boone Logan as the team's LOOGY, but that's hasn't been the case.

Jim Miller took over on the mound with just one out in the 7th, and guess what, he's not a very good pitcher. He worked the final two outs of the inning, but then the Indians blew the game open against him in the 8th, scoring five runs on five hits. Perez hit a two-run homerun that was ruled a homerun after video replay showed it hitting off of the top of the left field wall, making it a 6-3 game. A couple batters later, Brantley singled him Kipnis to extend the lead to 7-3. The Carlos Santana followed with a towering two-run homerun to deliver the final dagger, pushing the lead up to 9-3.

As you would expect, the Yankees went down quietly in the 9th to end the game.

They'll now fly out to Baltimore for a three-game series against the Orioles that'll take them into the All-Star break, which could not come soon enough. Hiroki Kuroda -- the only Yankees starter from the Opening Day rotation not on the DL right now -- and Miguel Gonzalez will be the pitching matchup for the 7:05 pm ET start.

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Yankees 7, Twins 4: Zelous Wheeler goes yard for his first big league hit

Zelous Wheeler waited eight years to make his Major League debut, bouncing around the minor leagues, getting over 2,000 at-bats in the minors before the Yankees called-up on Wednesday night.

In his second big league at-bat, Wheeler hit a 412 foot homerun into the left-center field bullpens, a few batter after Carlos Beltran launched hit 9th homerun of the year, back up Masahiro Tanaka, who in the first time in 18 starts this season failed to record a quality start, as the Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-4, on Thursday night at Target Field.

It was clear from the start that Tanaka was not on the top of his pitching game, coming off of two straight losses -- even though he pitched well in both starts -- as the Twins jumped on the board with a quick run in the first inning.

Brian Dozier opened the inning with a single off of Tanaka, then two batters later, Chris Parmelee hit a one-out double into the right field corner, scoring Dozier to put the Twins up 1-0. Parmelee was tagged out trying to stretch the double into a triple.

Minnesota went up 2-0 in the 3rd inning after Sam Fuld and Dozier reached on singled to kick off the inning, putting runners on 1st and 3rd,

The two runs gave Phil Hughes some room to work with, having beat the Yankees in his first start against them back on June 1 when he tossed eight innings of two-run ball. Hughes retired 11 of the first 12 batters that he faced through four innings, having set down the first six to make it 24 straight Yankee hitters going back to that June start at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees' lineup finally broke through against it's former teammate in the 5th inning. Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann hit back-to-back singles open the frame, then Beltran cleared the bases and gave Bombers a 3-2 lead with a three-run shot to right field. Both Beltran and McCann are hitting in the .220's, and need to start hitting better, obviously. Two batters later, Wheeler prompted John Sterling to debut "Wheels up for Zelous" for his first big league homerun, making it a 4-2 game.

Minnesota gained a run back on Tanaka in the bottom half of the 6th inning on an RBI groundout by Kendrys Morales, scoring Kurt Suzuki, who doubled then moved to third base on a Parmelee groundout. That cut the Yanks' lead to 4-3.

The Bombers, though, would extend their lead up to four runs in the next half inning with a three-run frame. Ichiro Suzuki drew a one-out walk and Wheeler followed up with a single. The next batter, Brendan Ryan, doubled to score Ichiro and move Wheeler to third, making this a 5-3 game.

Brian Duensing relieved Hughes to end his night. Hughes, and All-Star Game candidate two weeks ago, has been roughed up lately, and was tagged for seven runs on eight hits tonight, with a walk and six strikeouts.

Brett Gardner welcomed Duensing to the game with an RBI single that scored Wheeler and put Ryan on third base with just one out. A batter later, Derek Jeter grounded out, which was enough to score Ryan, giving the Yankees a 7-3 lead.

Tanaka in the 7th inning gave up his fourth run of the game for the very first time in his big league career. Trevor Plouffe doubled with one out, then Edurado Escobar singled home Plouffe to pull the Twins within three runs.

Like I said, this wasn't Tanaka's best game, facing the Twins for the second time in his career. He was charged with four runs on seven hits, with just three strikeouts and no walks on 85 pitches in seven innings of work.

He handed the ball off to Dellin Betances, who shut down the side in the 8th while striking out a pair, during his normal Betances thing. That lead to David Robertson, who issued a two-out walk, but still struck out the side to end the game for his 19th save of the season. Robertson has been really good in his first season as the closer, and as a free-agent at the end of the season, the Yankees need to lock him up.

Back to .500, the Yankees will send Chase Whitley to the mound on Friday afternoon for a special 3 pm start time on Independence Day, going up against right-hander Kyle Gibson. The game will be aired on ESPN.

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Zelous Wheeler called up, Yangervis Solarte optioned; Dean Anna designated for assignment

Confirming reports from Wednesday night, the Yankees announced on Thursday that infielder Zelous Wheeler has been called up for Triple-A Scranton, earning the first promotion of his professional career. On the short end of things, the struggling Yangervis Solarte was optioned to Triple-A, and Dean Anna was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster.
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If there was anybody that I did not see as a call-up option this season, it would have been Wheeler, who really worked hard this season to get into this position.

Wheeler is batting .300/.368/.469 with seven homeruns and 31 RBIs in 65 games with the Triple-A team this season, spending most of his time at third base, with shortstop and right field mixed in. So he's a versatile option for Joe Girardi's bench.

Solarte is in a is in a 3-for-41 (.073) slide after going 0-for-4 on Wednesday. On a larger scale, he's been batting .187/.270/.268 since mid-May. As much as you wanted to believe otherwise, Solarte was a career minor leaguer that didn't last very long. Not only his bat, but his defense at third base has taken a hit, too.

Anna, meanwhile, was traded to the Yankees during the winter, and played well enough in the spring to earn a spot on the Yankees' Opening Day roster. He was optioned down to Triple-A near the end of April after batting .162 in 12 games for the Yankees. Things weren't much better in Scranton -- he spent some time on the DL, hitting .196 down there. He was a nice guy, a good fielder, but couldn't live up the batting potential with the Yankees.

The Bombers are in Minnesota today to open up a four-game series with the Twins.

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