Royals beat Yanks on wild pitch in ninth
11:51 p.m. Friday, August 15, 2008
New York — Royals 4, Yankees 3
Yankee Stadium is a nice place to visit if you win there, which the Royals haven't done very often in recent years.
But they defeated the New York Yankees and premier closer Mariano Rivera, 4-3, on Friday night. It was just the sixth win in 35 games for Kansas City at the Stadium since the turn of the century.
Rivera gave up a one-out double to Esteban German in the ninth. Mitch Maier got an infield single, and Rivera's next pitch was a wild one that allowed German to score, breaking a 3-3 tie.
The game began one hour and 31 minutes late because of rain, but when it abated, Yankee Stadium was filled by a sellout crowd of 53,067. The storied ballpark has 18 regular-season games remaining.
The first run came in the Royals' second against left-hander Andy Pettitte. Jose Guillen led off with a walk and moved around on Alex Gordon's double and Ross Gload's sacrifice fly.
In the third, German led off with a double and tried to score on Mike Aviles' looping single but was thrown out at the plate by center fielder Brett Gardner.
Pettitte, who had not lost to the Royals in his 10 previous starts (7-0), yielded two more runs in the fifth. John Buck, snapping a 0-for-30 swoon, hit a ground-rule double to right field and German walked. After a sacrifice bunt, Aviles was intentionally walked to set up a lefty-lefty matchup with Mark Teahen.
Teahen pounded a long double to left-center field, the ball bounding over the wall. That scored two runs, but Aviles was forced to stop at third. And there Aviles stayed, because after an intentional walk to Guillen again loaded the bases, Billy Butler popped out and Gordon fanned.
Royals starter Gil Meche dodged trouble until the fifth, when Jose Molina doubled and scored on Derek Jeter's single. That was all Meche allowed in his six innings, in which he gave up six hits and two walks while striking out eight.
After throwing 106 pitches, Meche was relieved by left-hander Ron Mahay who had been out since Aug. 6 with a sore foot. The rust showed when he walked two batters. Leo Nunez replaced Mahay and gave up a RBI single to Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez's sacrifice fly, which tied the score at 3.
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