Ichiro’s Costly Error Helps Lead to Painful Yankees Loss to Blue Jays
August 26, 2013 · Chris Stephens · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
It’s very rare that New York Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki makes an error. But in Monday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Ichiro made an error that was particularly hurtful to his team’s chances.
The game was in the bottom of the fifth, tied 2-2 after Alex Rodriguez hit a solo home run in the top half of the inning to tie things up. With one out and runners on first and third, Edwin Encarnacion hit a deep fly ball to right field.
Likely sensing the wall was closer than it was, Ichiro leaped to make the catch only to watch the ball hit off his glove, allowing Jose Reyes to score and Ryan Goins to advance to third.
It was something that has now only happened three times this year and five times in the last two years. Simply put, Ichiro doesn’t make many errors. And when he does, it’s big news.
With 10 Gold Gloves to his name, those 10 awards tie Ichiro with the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones and Al Kaline for third all time among outfielders. In fact, only 15 other players in MLB history have 10-plus Gold Gloves. So, it goes without saying, Ichiro is in elite company.
Throughout his entire, 13-season major league career, he’s made just 36 errors on 4,511 chances—a .992 fielding percentage. That percentage ranks him 18th all time for outfielders who have played at least 500 games.
And no one was more hurt by the miscue than the 39-year-old legend himself. Per Erik Boland of Newsday:
The error kept the inning alive and the Blue Jays went on to score two more runs in the fifth to get to the final score of 5-2.
Still, as with most any single, isolated play, to say Ichiro cost New York the game would be wrong; he only hurt their chances. The fact remains there was a runner on third and one out. That run would have still scored with the out and the Yanks would have still been down 3-2.
The Yankees proceeded to go 3-for-15 the rest of the game and never mounted another serious scoring threat. The loss hurts, but it’s time to move on to the next one. The Bronx Bombers are still just 4.5 games behind the Oakland A’s in the AL wild-card standings.
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