Yankees Spring Training Game 29: Pitching staff loses in shutout
Philadelphia Phillies 6 -- New York Yankees 0
With the rotation decided, tonight's Yankees game featured something you won't see in a regular season game, nine pitchers for nine innings. That's Spring Training baseball for you.
The start of tonight's game featured the unsuccessful candidates for the fifth starter's job. Their role could be much like they experienced in tonight's game if they end up in the bullpen to help the Yankees in their pursuit of their 28th championship. To start tonight's game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Adam Warren got the first inning. He would walk two batters but he got a strikeout and pitched a scoreless inning. The next arm out of the bullpen was David Phelps. Leftfielder Domonic Brown hit a laser to third baseman Kelly Johnson but he would misplay it for an error. Kelly Johnson would have a bad night at the hot corner when a second error followed on a ground ball by Carlos Ruiz. The Yankees would get an out at home but former Yankee Bobby Abreu would cash-in on the pair of errors with a single to right field to score the first run of the game. Phelps would allow the one unearned run in his inning of work despite giving up just one hit. The next one out of the bullpen would be the lone lefty for the fifth starter's spot, Vidal Nuno. He would have the worst appearance of the three candidates when he served up back-to-back home runs to Ryan Howard and Marlon Byrd.
Vidal Nuno allowed two runs on the two home runs in his inning of work. Not a great response to the loss of the competition but there is still time to improve.
David Robertson, Matt Thornton and Shawn Kelley; three relievers that seem to be locks for the bullpen each had scoreless innings of work in tonight's game. Matt Daley is a possible candidate for the bullpen and he allowed a run on two hits in his inning of work while striking out two.
On the offense side, there isn't much to talk about when you don't score any runs but Brett Gardner looks to be ready for the regular season with his three hit night. He had three of the nine Yankees hits and was the only Yankee with more than one hit.