Garcia Wins First Start, Yanks Top Texas at BetLM

Garcia Wins First Start, Yanks Top Texas

NEW YORK —Freddy Garcia’s first sched­uled start this sea­son was wiped out by rain. The weather wasn’t much bet­ter when he finally got another chance to take the mound.

Gar­cia allowed two hits over six innings in his Yan­kees debut, Mark Teix­eira drove in three runs and New York held off the Texas Rangers 5–2 on a bone-chilling Sat­ur­day in the Bronx.

With tem­per­a­tures in the mid-40s, Gar­cia (1–0) worked through steady rain show­ers and winds gust­ing to 30 mph to shut down the Texas offense. The only hits the vet­eran right-hander allowed were to Adrian Bel­tre in the first and David Mur­phy in the fourth.

“He pitched really good,” said Robin­son Cano, who added a two-run homer in the eighth for the Yan­kees. “He waited a long time for this.”

The Yan­kees’ fifth starter, Gar­cia was sup­posed to start last week against the Min­nesota Twins. When rain post­poned the game, the well-traveled Gar­cia was pushed back more than a week, rel­e­gated once again to play­ing long toss and throw­ing bullpen sessions.

It sure must have kept him sharp. He needed to throw only 84 pitches against Texas.

“I’m really happy, thank­ful for start­ing,” said Gar­cia, who did toss an inning of relief against Boston on April 10. “I’ve been wait­ing a cou­ple of weeks and it came out good.”

He turned over a three-run lead to the bullpen, and Joba Cham­ber­lain got through the sev­enth with­out trou­ble before Rafael Sori­ano strug­gled again in his new eighth-inning role.

The for­mer Tampa Bay closer allowed run-scoring sin­gles by Elvis Andrus and Michael Young that made it 3–2, and nearly a three-run homer by Beltre—the deep fly­ball landed in the seats just out­side the right-field foul pole. Bel­tre even­tu­ally grounded into a dou­ble play.

“I’m stick­ing my head out and I thought it was foul, and I’m glad they called it that way,” Yan­kees man­ager Joe Girardi said. “The wind was blow­ing that way.”

Mar­i­ano Rivera worked around Yorvit Torrealba’s dou­ble in the ninth for his sixth save.

Derek Hol­land (2–1) pitched well for Texas, allow­ing five runs in 7 2–3 innings. The young left-hander baf­fled the Yan­kees in the AL cham­pi­onship series last fall, toss­ing 5 2–3 innings of score­less relief, but lost for the third time in three starts against New York.

The Rangers (10–4) lost for the third time in four games overall.

“Derek did a great job,” man­ager Ron Wash­ing­ton said. “He really just made two mistakes.”

Per­haps expect­ing rain to force an early fin­ish, New York wasted lit­tle time tak­ing the lead. Nick Swisher lashed a sin­gle up the mid­dle in the first, and Teix­eira promptly drove a 3–2 pitch into the right-field bleach­ers to give New York the lead. It was his fifth homer of the sea­son after going hit­less in four at-bats in the series opener Fri­day night.

The Yan­kees scored again in the third, when Derek Jeter walked on four pitches to start the inning. He went to third on Swisher’s dou­ble and scored on Teixeira’s sac­ri­fice fly.

The Rangers never threat­ened against Gar­cia, going down in order in the first, third, fourth and sixth innings on an array of split­ters, change­ups and loop­ing curveballs.

“Freddy used to be all power,” Wash­ing­ton said. “He was smart in the way that he pitched. You’ve got to give him credit, espe­cially against an aggres­sive team like ours.”

The vet­eran starter got plenty of help from his defense, too, includ­ing a nifty div­ing stop by Alex Rodriguez on a hard ground­ball in the third inning, and a slid­ing grab on the wet grass by Swisher in the fifth inning that may have saved a run.

Rodriguez left in the sev­enth inning with what the team called lower back and oblique stiff­ness. No med­ical tests were planned, though Girardi wasn’t sure whether he’ll play Sunday.

“His lower right side was stiff,” Girardi said. “We’ll see how he is tomorrow.”

NOTES: Hol­land matched a career high with 118 pitches. … Yan­kees C Fran­cisco Cervelli (bro­ken foot) played an extended spring train­ing game Sat­ur­day in Tampa, Fla. … RHP Car­los Silva had his first bullpen ses­sion Sat­ur­day since agree­ing to a minor league deal with New York on April 9. Silva was released by the Cubs in spring train­ing. … The paid atten­dance was 41,876, though per­haps half that many braved the weather.

Related Posts:

• Rangers 7–0 at Home for First Time
• Texas Over­whelms MLB Bet­ting Favorite Yankees
• Phan Wins Thrilling UFC 136 Deci­sion Over Garcia
• MLB Bet­ting: Giants Beat Texas for 3–1 World Series Lead
• MLB Bet­ting: San Fran­cisco Defeats Texas in World Series Opener

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•