AN UGLY GAME AGAINST A BEATABLE TEAM

The hot-cold streaks just keep coming. Unfortunately, we pulled a snow cone from the freezer instead of a nice hot plate of arroz con gandules from the stove top. It was another pitching failure as the Yankees dropped a bad one against the last-place Phillies. To make matters worse, Michael Pineda who at one point in the season was considered the ace of the staff, had what was easily his worst start of the season.

Let's look at some stats to show how streaky the Yankees have been of late. For the fifth consecutive time and the sixth time in seven games, Yankees have either scored or allowed 7 runs in a game, though not necessarily in the same game. In 19 games played in June, the Yankees have scored two or fewer or scored seven or more in 11 of those 19 games. The worst stat of the night: the Yankees are now 1-4 against teams ranked as worst in their respective league. At least we're headed to Houston after this series.

Maikel Franco was clearly the star of the night for the Philadelphia Phillies. He had four hits on the night including two home runs and five runs batted in. With Ben Revere and Cesar Hernandez, the top 3 in the order went 9 for 16 with 8 runs scored and eight runs batted in. As a team, they scored 11 runs on 18 hits. They began their scoring against Pineda, continued it with Chris Capuano, and got one more run in the ninth against Branden Pinder. It didn't matter that Kevin Correia couldn't make it to the 5th inning, or that Jake Diekman couldn't find home plate on most of his pitches. It's tough to win when the other team scores in double-digits.

The Yankees were not without their honorable mentions. One was Brett Gardner and his 3-run home run to go with an opposite field hit and two bunt singles. I've often wondered why the Yankees don't bunt more when opposing teams put on the shift. Brett Gardner showed how it's done. Carlos Beltran also continued his hot streak with a pair of doubles tonight. It's nice being able to use Beltran's name in the same sentence as "hot streak". Another nice moment, Diego Moreno made his major league debut, becoming the third player in three days to wear number 65. He showed some impressive velocities in the upper 90's with his fastball. He did hit the first batter he faced and proceeded to load the bases, but then he struck out Maikel Franco to get out of the inning.

All in all, this was not the Yankees night. The Phillies are a team that the Yankees should be beating. They did make a nice stand in the ninth inning and hopefully that will carry over to tomorrow night's game. It'll be CC Sabathia's turn to straighten this out.

I need some arroz con gandules.

Final: Phillies 11 - Yankees 8

--Ike Dimitriadis, BYB Senior Staff Writer
Twitter: @KingAgamemnon
My blog is: Shots from Murderer's Row







You've made BYB the fastest growing Yankees fan site in history. Now shop at the Bleeding Yankee Blue store!  Follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and LIKE Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook!  Also, don't forget to check out the BYB Hub!