New york yankees bullpen 2011

On May 17th , Urshela keyed a three-run rally in the bottom of the 9th against the Tampa Bay Rays for a win. That put the Yankees in first place ahead of Tampa Bay by a half-game for the first time since Opening Day. On May 22nd , they were and had been on a run since April 16th. It helped that they had already played 12 games against the lowly Orioles, but they had played well against everyone they had faced, in spite of the injuries. By sweeping a doubleheader from the Kansas City Royals on May 25th , the Yankees made it 7 straight wins with another player not on the radar in spring training, Chance Adams , picking up his first major league win in the nitecap.

The Yankees made a trade to acquire DH Edwin Encarnacion from the Seattle Mariners in early June, then got back both Stanton and Judge within a span of a few days, shortly after Gregorius had returned as well. This cost OF Clint Frazier his job - he was sent to the minors in spite of having hit.

They reeled off 8 straight wins starting on June 15th. On June 24th , they tied a record belonging to the Texas Rangers with a homer in their 27th straight game; Hicks and Stanton, with his first of the year, did the honors in a win over the Toronto Blue Jays. It did not take long to set a new record, as D. LeMahieu homered leading off the next game, and his blast was immediately followed by another one by Judge.

On June 29 - 30th , the Yankees traveled to London, England to face the Boston Red Sox in the first two major league games to be played in Europe ; they won both games, the first and the second , as the cozy dimensions of London Olympic Stadium were unable to hold in their powerful bats. The homer streak finally ended on July 2nd , after 31 games, when they did not hit any long balls in a loss to the New York Mets. That day, one of the major contributors to the Yankees' first-half success, 1B Luke Voit, went on the injured list with an abdominal strain; he joined Stanton, who had returned to action in late June only to re-aggravate his knee injury after barely a week of games.

In spite of remaining questions about the team's starting rotation, the Yankees remained quiet at the trading deadline at the end of July, not making a move to acquire available starting pitchers such as Marcus Stroman , Zack Greinke or Madison Bumgarner.

Meanwhile, the injuries continued to mount - with C Sanchez, CF Hicks and 1B Voit all going or returning to the injured list in late July or early August and others missing games here and there while banged up, but the wins still piled up. On August 5 - 7 , the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Orioles that gave them a number of records: an unblemished record against the Birds at Camden Yards ; most homers in a three-game series 16 ; most homers as a visiting team in one ballpark in one season 43 ; most homers against one team 43 - in spite of there being 4 games left to play at home against the Orioles ; most consecutive games with at least 5 homers 3.

They completed their season series on August 14th with their 16th straight win over Baltimore, for an overall record of It was the most wins by a Yankee team against any opponent since they had gone against the Kansas City Athletics. They hit a total of 61 homers and both Torres and Sanchez ended up in a double figures, a first since Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth had done so against the Boston Red Sox , in 22 games. The final win was also the 81st of the season and put them 40 games above. On August 24th , the Yankees tied the major league record for most home runs in a month with their 58th blast in just 23 games; the two team that shared the record, the Orioles in May and the Mariners also in May had needed 28 and 27 games respectively.

They finished the month with the unworldly total of 74 homers! A slight reprieve from all the hitting came on September 2nd , when the Yankees were shut out , by the Texas Rangers and their ace Mike Minor. While this did not change much in the bigger scheme of things, it ended a streak of games without being shut out, dating back to July 1st of the previous season, the second longest such streak in history.

The longest was still the games the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig led Yankees teams put together from to On September 8th , they hit three more homers in a win over the Red Sox to break the team record of homers in a season set the previous year; at the time, it was the also the major league record, but this year's Minnesota Twins had also eclipsed the mark a few days earlier. But I thought overall he threw the ball pretty well. Luis Severino returned last month from Tommy John surgery, and the two-time All-Star has tossed six scoreless innings over four relief appearances since Sept.

That spot arrived Friday for the year-old German, who replaced Loaisiga with the Yankees trailing to open the eighth. Boone then replaced German, who was at 32 pitches, with Abreu. He recorded one out before surrendering a two-run single by Franco that made the score The Yankees rallied for two runs in the ninth, but Gary Sanchez and Rougned Odor struck out with the tying and go-ahead runs on base.

Indeed, the beginning of the year was rough, as they went on a stretch in mid-April during which they lost 7 times in 8 games, including being swept at home by the Oakland Athletics on April 19 - They were in last place in the AL East at that point, and their record gave them just one more win than the worst total in the majors.

Heading into spring training, the Yankees were concerned about the health of 1B Mark Teixeira , who had made numerous trips to the disabled list over the past couple of seasons. These worries became more serious when young Greg Bird , who had filled in very well for him the last six weeks of , went down with a season-ending injury in the spring. Teixeira was healthy when the season started, but health woes caught up with him in May, placing him on the disabled list.

Dustin Ackley filled in for him. The Yankees called up veteran minor leaguer Chris Parmelee to help out, but he went down with a hamstring injury in early June, and now there was little left in the cupboard. The last options available were calling up Nick Swisher from the minors, but he had not given any signs that he could hit from the left side any more, or playing a minor leaguer out of position at first base.

In the immediate, they were playing second baseman Rob Refsnyder at first base in the hope that Teixeira would soon return. On June 13th , they picked up Ike Davis , who was playing in the Texas Rangers minor league system, to lend them a hand at the position.

A particular question related to their trio of top closers - Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances - and whether this constituted an unaffordable luxury for a team with plenty of holes elsewhere. Realistically though, even though hometown fans were growing impatient, the team wanted to wait until the trading deadline before making any bold moves.

When the trade deadline came, the Yankees chose their camp, however, and - gasp! First to go was Chapman, sent to the Chicago Cubs for a nice haul of four young players, and next, on July 31st , was Miller, who went to the Cleveland Indians for four other youngsters. That left the closer's role to Betances, who had seemed to be the one to assume it ever since he had emerged as the final set-up man for Mariano Rivera two years earlier.

Also traded was P Ivan Nova. And there were calls for other bold moves to accelerate the inevitable rebuilding, such as getting rid of Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez , who both seemed to be on their last legs at this point, and trading OF Carlos Beltran , one of the better Yankees player this season, but who at 39 was unlikely to still be productive when the Yankees would contend again.

Indeed, Beltran was traded to the Texas Rangers the next day in return for three prospects, while the Yankees did acquire one major leaguer, RP Tyler Clippard , picked up from the Arizona Diamondbacks in return for a minor leaguer.