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Game 82: Yankees at Mets (L)

New York Yankees (44-37) vs. New York Mets (39-41)

Darrell Rasner (4-5, 4.50) vs. Oliver Perez (5-5, 5.29)

June 29, 2008 @ 1:05 p.m. @ Shea Stadium

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Yankees	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		1	4	0
Mets	0	1	1	0	0	1	0	0	X		3	12	1
Perez (W, 6-5) Rasner (L, 4-6) Wagner (S, 18)

Preview:

The Yankees begin the second half of their season with their final game against the Mets.  After splitting a pair of blowouts on Friday and winning a close game Saturday, the Yankees try to win the series and split the season series this afternoon.

After starting the season very well, Darrell Rasner has been terrible in two of his last three starts, for a 9.88 ERA in that period.  In his most recent game, he gave up seven runs in five innings in a blowout loss to the Pirates.  Rasner has only faced the Mets once in his career.  In that game, he gave up two runs without getting an out, before having his season ended with a line drive to his right hand.

The Yankees will go with a very interesting lineup today, courtesy of left-handed opponent Oliver Perez, against whom rightys hit .281 and leftys hit .167.  As such, Johnny Damon is the only left-hander in the Yankees’ lineup, with Jorge Posada playing first in place of Giambi, and Justin Christian getting the start at right in place of Bobby Abreu.

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Recap:

Behind the strength of Oliver Perez, the Mets took the game and the season series from the Yankees.  Perez was utterly dominant, giving up just three hits over seven innings, while striking out eight.  This is the second time this year that Perez has pitched well against the Yankees.  In those two starts, he has a 1.84 ERA, while pitching to a 5.59 ERA against the rest of the league.

Darrell Rasner let the Mets reach base practically at will, allowing eight hits and three walks over his five innings.  Yet he somehow managed to keep those runners from reaching home, as he held them to just two runs.  He wasn’t exactly economical though, taking just those five innings to get over 100 pitches.

David Robertson made his career debut this afternoon.  He was by no means dominant, giving up four hits over two innings.  All of them were singles, but they still bit him in the sixth, when he threw a wild pitch which set the Mets up for the following sac fly.

Offensively, the only Yankee who managed any production today was Wilson Betemit, who hit a towering homer off Perez in the seventh.  Derek Jeter went 2-4, including getting on base to lead off the ninth, but since no one around him did anything, those hits went wasted.  A-Rod went hitless, but he came close a couple of times.  Most notably, in the ninth inning, with Jeter on base, he hit the ball right out to the warning track, missing the game-tying home run by about five feet.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Darrell Rasner, David Robertson, Wilson Betemit, Game Thread / Recap, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.