Sunday, May 30, 2010
By Paul Hoynes
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
NEW YORK
So far, the first trip to the big city for Tony Sipp and David Huff has been a bang. The wrong kind.
Alex Rodriguez hit Huff in the head Saturday with a line drive and sent him to the hospital. Huff returned to Yankee Stadium on Sunday morning with a smile on his face and a lump on the left side of his head.
Sipp hasn’t suffered physically, but he has gone from unhittable to easy pickings. Mark Teixeira hit a three-run homer off the left-hander in the seventh inning to rally the Yankees to a 7-3 victory over the Indians and ruin a good performance by Justin Masterson. Teixeira’s three-run drive into the left field seats came on the heels of Robinson Cano’s grand slam off Sipp in Friday’s 8-2 New York victory.
In his first two games in the Bronx, Sipp has allowed six earned runs in one-third of an inning.
“Things are still good,” said Sipp. “I still like New York. I still wake up and get to come in and play baseball for a living. I’m not complaining. You’re going to have days like this.”
Sipp relieved Masterson after Derek Jeter hit a two-out, two-run single to cut the Indians’ lead to 3-2. Curtis Granderson greeted Sipp with a double, then Sipp hung a 2-2 slider to Teixeira that the Yankees’ first baseman hit 434 feet.
Trevor Crowe’s RBI single off A.J. Burnett in the third gave the Indians a 1-0 lead. They made it 3-0 in the seventh as Luis Valbuena, after getting hit by a pitch and stealing second, scored on Jeter’s throwing error on Lou Marson’s grounder. Jason Donald followed with a triple.