Former Indians lead Yankees past Tribe

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Almost everything about the Indians’ undoing was familiar.

Just one early bad inning, really, was enough to cost them a game yet again. And Wednesday it was two former star players in Cleveland who did the damage, too.

CC Sabathia struck out nine in his first complete game of the season and Travis Hafner hit a big home run in the New York Yankees’ 6-4 win over Cleveland.

Brett Gardner also homered for the Yankees, who swept the Indians in the Bronx for the second year in a row. The Yankees put up a four-run inning early on in all three games that accounted for most, if not all, of their runs.

“Ain’t nobody likes to lose three games in a row,” Cleveland’s Nick Swisher said. “It’s kind of a down time for us right now. But I feel like we were being in every ballgame. Just kind of one hit here or there turns things around. So, I feel like we’re kind of on the doorstep right now. We just need to break through it. We’re playing 20 games in a row, playing games at all sorts of hours of the night, it’s taking a little bit of a toll on us.”

Hafner, Sabathia’s teammate in Cleveland when the Indians beat the Yankees in the 2007 playoffs, hit a two-run shot in the first inning off Corey Kluber (3-4), and Gardner added a three-run shot in the second following Chris Stewart’s RBI single.

“His stuff was tremendous the whole game,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “A couple of misfires: a fastball to Hafner that ran back over the middle, and a breaking ball — that’s the runs. His stuff was moving all over the place, he competed, he never lost his poise and, because of that and we had to dig out of a hole. But he gave us a chance. And it says a lot for him and his competiveness.”

It was enough for Sabathia, who threw three straight balls to leadoff hitter Michael Bourn, then looked dialed in. He struck out the side in the third, as well as the leadoff hitter in the fourth.

“He was really spotting it up,” Swisher said of his former New York teammate. “I mean, you go into the batter’s box and you’re used to seeing 94-95 mph, and all of a sudden, you’re seeing these back door breaking balls coming at you, just — bam — right on the corner.”

The Indians have won four of their last 16.