Yankee homers too much for Cleveland

By PAUL HOYNES

NEW YORK — The double play is a pitcher’s best friend, but in the confusing world of baseball where bad can sometimes be good as long as it’s not really bad, the solo home run can be a fine companion to the men who make their living on the 10-inch hill of compacted dirt in the middle of the diamond.

The exception is when your pitchers give up five such homers as the Indians did Friday afternoon in a 6-5 loss to the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Derek Jeter hit the bases-empty homer that mattered the most with two outs in the eighth inning to break a 5-5 tie.

One more exception should be considered after a game such as Friday’s. That exception is that a high outside fastball on a 3-2 pitch should be called a ball even if future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera throws it.

Plate umpire Phil Cuzzi called it a strike, retiring Mark DeRosa and ended the game. The Indians had runners on first and second with two out at the time.

DeRosa, who homered, singled and scored two runs in the game, had worked Rivera to a full count. Victor Martinez, hitting .378, was on deck with a chance to tie or put the Tribe ahead if DeRosa reached base.

“It was a ball,” said DeRosa, quietly in the Indians clubhouse. “Mariano Rivera is going to go down as the greatest closer of all time, but it was up and away.”

Johnny Damon, Mark Teixeira, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano and Jeter homered for the Yankees. It’s the first time they’ve hit five homers in a game since Aug. 1, 2007, against the White Sox.

Anthony Reyes started for the Indians and gave up three of the five homers. Manager Eric Wedge went to the pen in the sixth with a 5-3 lead after the Tribe scored three runs in the fifth off Joba Chamberlain.

Zach Jackson gave up a leadoff homer to Cano in the sixth. Wedge gave the ball and a 5-4 lead to Vinnie Chulk in the seventh. Chulk chucked it away on a throw into the runner at first base on Teixeira’s routine bouncer. It allowed Damon to score the tying run all the way from first.

Jensen Lewis started the eighth by striking out two straight lefties — Hideki Matsui and Brett Gardner. He fell quickly. Jeter, the next batter, drove his 3-1 pitch over the right-field fence.