In CC Sabathia's final start of the spring, he started out rough, giving up three doubles, a walk and a hit in the first frame. Sabathia's final line after five innings would be four earned runs on six hits and three walks with four strikeouts and a home run. The good news is that that's all the scoring the Astros would do in the game, as Mariano Rivera, David Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, Boone Logan, and Vidal Nuno each came in to pitch a scoreless inning while the Yankee offense caught up.
The offense was led by Brett Gardner and Travis Hafner who each reached base three times. Hafner's bat has really started to come alive over the past couple of games, hopefully indicating he's ready to have a successful start to the season as the DH. The Yankee runs were driven in by Gardner, Kevin Youkilis, Chris Stewart, and one of the newest members of the team, Vernon Wells. Eduardo Nunez, Robinson Cano, Juan Rivera, Jayson Nix, and Melky Mesa would all reach base once as well. Unfortunately another trend from lately continued, as Youkilis was charged with a throwing error that Juan Rivera couldn't scoop at first base. Such is life without Mark Teixeira, I suppose.
Both managers agreed that the game would go on longer than ten innings which led to the tie. Both teams threatened in the final inning; particularly the Astros, who had runners in scoring position with no outs but failed to push them across.
The Yankees are back in action tomorrow night at 7:05 p.m. when David Phelps gets his seventh start of the season against the Baltimore Orioles in Sarasota.
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