BALTIMORE – A very tired Yankees team found enough energy to overcome the handicap that Kyle Farnsworth has become to a club whose season is circling the drain.
Brought into yesterday’s game against the Orioles at Camden Yards with a six-run bulge in the eighth inning, Farnsworth not only walked the first batter and gave up a two-run homer, he crossed up Jorge Posada and then had the audacity to walk off the mound when the catcher went to talk to him about why he threw a fastball that hit Posada in the arm when Posada called for a slider. Things became so heated Alex Rodriguez played peacemaker on the mound.
Asked if he and Posada, who glared at the pitcher immediately after the cross up, were OK following a 10-6 Yankees victory in front of 47,936, Farnsworth added fuel to the problem by saying, “We will see.”
And then the erratic reliever may have done with his mouth what his ineffective pitching hasn’t been able to do: Punch his ticket out of The Bronx by complaining about not being used.
“I don’t like it at all,” said Farnsworth, who appeared in three games in 12 days going into yesterday’s debacle when he forced Joe Torre to use Mariano Rivera in the ninth. “I didn’t come here to sit on the bench.”
Yet, when asked to earn the $5.25 million he makes this year and the $5.5 million he is due next season, Farnsworth has been so bad the Yankees have made upgrading his role in the pen their No. 1 objective before tomorrow’s trade deadline.
As for the Yankees, they found enough Red Bull and coffee to grind their way to a victory that enabled them to gain ground in the AL East and the Wild-Card race. They pulled to within eight games of the first place Red Sox and are four lengths behind the Indians.
“This was a hugely important game to win,” Torre said of his club that was jonesing for today’s off day. “It was an important game for us and we did it against a good pitcher (Daniel Cabrera).”
Chien-Ming Wang, who had problems with umpire Sam Holbrook’s strike zone, grinded through six innings in which he gave up three runs and nine hits. He is 12-5. Designated hitter Hideki Matsui drove in three runs without a hit and Johnny Damon was the closest thing to a star by going 3-for-5, scoring four runs, driving in two and making a sensational running catch in left field that saved two runs in the fourth when the game was far from over.
Counting the suspended game they won Friday night, the Yankees are 14-6 since the All-Star break.
Alex Rodriguez’s entry into the 500 Home Run Fraternity will have to wait until tomorrow night at the earliest. A-Rod stayed on 499 by going 0-for-2 and drawing three walks (one intentional). He is hitless in 11 at-bats since moving to within a homer of becoming the 22nd player in history to swat 500.
The trade deadline is 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon and while teams expressed an interest in Farnsworth recently, it will be a major miracle if GM Brian Cashman can find a taker after yesterday’s act that goes with a 1-1 record, 4.57 ERA and having allowed 47 hits and 21 walks in 41⅓ innings. The Tigers were interested, but that was before manager Jim Leyland hears about yesterday’s shenanigans.
How far has Farnsworth fallen? The Yankees are on the verge of turning stud prospect Joba Chamberlain from a minor-league starter to late-inning reliever, a role the 21-year-old right-hander has never handled.
And they could be poised to give the Rangers more than they originally planned for Eric Gagne.