WHY SEPTEMBER LOSSES TO DIVISION RIVALS STINKS

The Yankees lost today. That's 2 in a row to last place Baltimore, but more importantly, it was 2 losses to Buck Showalter who, at this point in the season has 1 mission; beat the Yankees. The season's over for the Orioles, there is nothing else to try and prove. All Showalter needs to do now is play each game against the Yankees and win it like it was Game 7 of the World Series. He did that today and he won.

Ivan Nova didn’t have great stuff today and look, it’s going to happen. Nova’s had a good run, but a combination of he, Boone Logan, Scott Proctor and Rafael Soriano contributed to the loss. People can blame only the bullpen today and yes they contributed, but it's not only on them. You can also solely blame Nova, but that’s only part of it too. Today was a classic "team loss", the pitching wasn’t great all around.

In the 11^th today, Proctor allowed Robert Andino to hit a ball to left to knock in the winning run. Before that, in the 8^th, Andino knocked in the tying run against Soriano. Hey, we can at least give Andino credit for having a great game. That's baseball.

Earlier in the game, Boone Logan, who’s the Yankees lefty reliever who's put into games to get lefty hitters out, couldn’t get a lefty hitter out, and so, Girardi took the his lefty reliever out after the lefty Orioles hitter, well, hit him. That gave the Orioles their 3^rd run of the game, but that run was Nova’s, not Boone's. Boone's sole job was to get out the lefty and not let the run score.

The Yankee offense consisted of Derek Jeter and Eric Chavez both contributing to 2 RBIs each. Jeter got a 2 run single in the second inning. Chavez had 2 hits today.

For me though, the biggest plays were defensive and both were made at home plate. Between the strong throws and Francisco Cervelli nailing the O’s at home, twice, there was nothing better. In the 7^th, Nick Markakis was trying to score from first base on a Vladmir Guerrero double and was nailed at the plate. In the 8^th inning, Mark Reynolds was trying to score on a Chris Brown single, the Yankees got him. It was well exceuted and well done. As Cervelli told ESPN, "[Home plate] is my house, so nobodies going to come inside."

Bottom line, you never want to lose to a division rival in September, and we did. Time to get serious Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s getting late early. We need to get as many wins as possible now, it's the only way to get to the playoffs.

Final Score: Orioles 5 – Yankees 4.

The Yanks are going back to Cali now for a series against the Angels starting tomorrow night.. Bartolo Colon is set to go against a very good Jered Weaver. Let me also say that Weaver is hitable and the Yankees have hit him in the past. This game is winnable. Colon needs to get back to his own self and pitch his heart out. Quite simply, if we can snipe a few runs off of Weaver and Colon can hold the Angels through 6, there’s no reason why we can’t win this game.

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.