Teixeira, who recently passed the 400 home run landmark, is in the final year of a $180m eight-year deal with the Yankees. He didn’t play like it, though.
Advertisement
A three-time All-Star first baseman whose career has been interrupted by injuries for much of the last five years, Teixeira announced in a tear-filled news conference Friday at Yankee Stadium that he plans to retire at the end of this season.
At.202, his batting average reached.200 for the first time since before play on May 20.
Slowed by injuries, Teixeira said he will retire after this season at age 36.
Teixeira was the first Yankees player to emerge from the dugout in the top of the first inning.
Ellsbury hit a one-out single, then Teixeira doubled to right field.
He doubled in the first inning after warm ovation, then legged out a single in the third and took third on Brian McCann’s double. He grounded out in the fourth before walking and coming around to score on a single by Chase Headley in the sixth.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that while Teixeira was a Hall of Fame-caliber hitter, his defense stands out.
“Teixeiras are criers, by the way”, he said. “Running around the bases (is) always good”. His best season came in 2009, his first with the Yankees, when he hit.292 and finished second in AL MVP voting. “So I’m happy to do it”. The Indians will try to stop the bleeding with staff leader Corey Kluber – who dominated the Yankees in Cleveland’s only win against NY this season – on the mound opposite CC Sabathia. The key inning of the night was the third inning, in which the Yankees scored five runs.
“I got to live out my dream and had more success than I could ever imagine”, Teixeira said. “If we keep winning games, then no one can catch us”.
“I didn’t see him get flustered”, Girardi said.
Gary Sanchez drove in his first major league RBI with a double in the fifth inning. When I was a kid playing in Texas, I played over 500 games straight because I wanted to be Cal Ripken.
He would get choked up repeatedly, only half-kiddingly asking reporters not to ask him anything that would make him cry more. “He recorded two of the first four outs, in a sense”.
Starter Michael Pineda pitched six innings and allowed four runs on six hits, while striking out six Indians.
Starlin Castro crushed a grand slam and scored three times as the Yankees’ offense came alive on Friday night.
The Indians (61-46) have lost four of six, a stretch in which they have been outscored 50-32. The loss to the Yankees and Detroit’s 4-3 win over the New York Mets dropped their lead over the Tigers in the American League Central Division to just two games.
So they gave Pineda plenty of run support, although it didn’t take long for him to give some of it back. We’ve got some veterans that can still get the job done and we’re going to continue to do that.
Alvarez has five homers in his last three games.
“We’re a confident group”, Indians first baseman Mike Napoli said. But thanks to the events of the past week, once Tomlin left early, the Indians had to go with AAA callups and pitchers that wouldn’t be on the roster if there weren’t three relievers on the DL.
Advertisement
NOTES: Cleveland recalled left-hander Shawn Morimando from Columbus and optioned left-hander Ryan Merritt and infielder Eric Gonzalez to the Triple-A farm team.
