HOW THE YANKEES BEAT THE YANKEES LAST NIGHT

The Yankees, like every MLB team, play 162 regular season games. And every year there are usually a handful of games that have me scratching my head; last night was one of those games. No disrespect to Mr. Bruce Chen and the Royals organization but you did not beat the New York Yankees last night; the New York Yankees lost that game and it didn't help to have some awful umpiring!

It all started in the first inning. Derek Jeter led off the game with a single to left. In fact it was the very first pitch. Jeter would go on to have another great game at the plate (more on that in just a bit) but it was that first hit that set the tone for this game. After Jeter's hit Curtis Granderson worked a 3-2 count and then it happened...Jeter attempted to steal second and Chen picked him off by a mile. And, of course, what happens on the very next pitch? That's right, Grandy smacks his 34th homerun of the year. Look, Jeter is the man. Hands down one of the smartest players in all of MLB so it's hard to get on him for that baserunning mistake. But, after the 1st inning the Yankees settled for the 1 run instead of 2, which would come back to haunt us.

Bartolo Colon did not have his A game last night, no doubt about that, but he did battle. He battled for 5 innings giving up 5 runs. Not a great night for Colon but believe it or not he should have either won that game or at least finished with a no decision. Bartolo Colon's final line:
5 IP - 7 H - 5 ER - 2 BB - 4 K

Moving onto the 3rd inning. The Royals scored 4 times but it should have only been 3. The umpires ruled Billy Butler's double a home run even after using Instant Replay. I still cannot believe that the umps screwed this one up. Now, although this was an important run I still believe the Yankees blew this game, not the umpires. So I am not going to spend time blasting the umps or Instant Replay.

The Yankees were an awful 1-10 with runners in scoring position tonight. That is just not going to get it done. Bruce Chen could not get his fastball above 86 mph! I tweeted this last night that I thought Jose Cano threw harder to his son at the Home run Derby last month!

But it wasn't only the bats that let us down last night...it was also our defense. Now, if you look at the box score you will see the Yankees did not have any errors, but to me that does not tell the whole story. Let me explain...in the 7th inning the Yankees were down 4-2. With Colon still pitching, Melky Cabrera led off the inning with a triple and then Billy Butler walked.

Inexplicably Joe Girardi and the Yankees decided to play the infield back/DP depth. What? Why? We're down 4-2! Why were we basically giving up a run? I cannot believe we played our defense that way. And then Colon gets what he needs. Eric Hosmer grounded to Tex but instead of throwing home to get Melky and hold the Royals to 4 runs, Tex takes the safe play at 1st base. Again, like Jeter, Tex is one of the most intelligent players in MLB and the best defensive 1st baseman but if there is one flaw I have seen in Tex is that he doesn't always like to throw home. It certainly is no guarantee we get Melky but why not go for it.

Well, after giving up that 5th run the Yankees did get Jeff Francoeur to ground into a double play but the damage was done. Just another example of how I think the Yankees beat themselves last night. In fact, Jeter's base running mistake and Tex's safe and conservative play in the 7th alone cost us two runs.

This all leads us to the 9th inning. The Yankees inched closer and had a rally going that brought them within one run of the Royals. In fact, we had the bases loaded and our birthday boy up, Jorge Posada. I had the "Hip Hip Jorge" tweet ready to go but it was not meant to be. Jorge struck out looking. It was an ugly at bat for Jorge but was the "perfect" ending to just an all around ugly game for the Yankees. We have to look at the silver lining in this series. Despite last night's loss we still took two out of three on the road. It's now onto Minnesota and hopefully, even though he won't be in the lineup tonight, A-Rod is just what the doctor ordered...

Here were a few bright spots last night:

• As I mentioned earlier, despite his 1st inning base running mistake, Jeter had another great night at the plate: Jetes was 4-5 with a double and run scored. Jeter is now hitting .290 for the season, creeping closer and closer to .300.

• "2011 AL MVP" Curtis Granderson had another monster game. Grandy went 3-4, hitting his 34th HR, knocking in his 95th RBI and scored two more runs.

• Hector Noesi relieved Colon and pitched fantastic. He threw 3 innings only giving up 1 hit and no runs.

Final Score: Kansas City Royals 5 - New York Yankees 4

--Mikey Blue, BYB Senior Writer

Email: DonnieBaseball2323@gmail.com
Twitter: @MikeyBlu23

Please comment and let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.