After eight futile innings, Yankees fans had to exhale at the sight they saw on the mound to open the ninth.
Oliver Perez has had a nice second act to his career as a reliever since being known as the overprice bane of the Mets rotation in the late 2000s. But that was not on display in The Bronx on Monday night when the lefty walked all three batters he faced – Brett Gardner, Alex Rodriguez and Brian McCann – to set up Carlos Beltran’s game-winning sacrifice fly against Chad Qualls.
To be fair, the A-Rod walk was intentional, but only came after an extremely wild pitch allowed Gardner to go to second.