There's a Milk Carton With Yankee Bats On It

You can only blow so many chances in one game.

Can you do stem cell therapy on an entire lineup?

Bartolo Colon had stem cells injected into his elbow and shoulder last year as part of a last-ditch effort to save his baseball career. He's back throwing serious heat and looks like the pitcher he was when he won a Cy Young in 2005 which is a pretty good advertisement for the bleeding edge medical procedure.

So whaddya say we break out the bone marrow and the syringes in the Yankee lineup before Thursday's game with the Royals? Something needs to be done after spending 11 innings watching the Yankees flail their way to a 4-3 loss to the Royals. 

The numbers are fairly brutal to look at in the light of day. The Yankees had 12 hits, received eight walks from Royals pitchers and managed to score three runs because they went 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position.

Fifteen runners were left on base and the Yankees hit into two more double plays to completely waste another effective start by A.J. Burnett. Burnett gave up one hit and one run over seven innings, raising the entirely unexpected possibility that the Yankee hitters simply relax too much when Burnett is on the mound.

Laughable, sure, but we're gobsmacked for an explanation of just how the Yankees can be completely shut down by Vin Mazzaro, Nathan Adcock, Tim Collins, Aaron Crow and Louis Coleman. They did manage to squeeze a run in against Joakim Soria, who would be the one Royals pitcher from Wednesday night known outside his own living room.

Of course, the Yankees bailed Soria out as well by bunting after the Royals closer showed he was having trouble finding the strike zone. It was their second bunt of the night which we'll file under Joe Girardi not really understanding how to fix the problem he complained about after the game.

It was just 24 hours ago that we were discussing the way the Yankees seemed to always find a way to win in the face of long odds. Sometimes it is truly a shame that you can't wipe things off of the internet.

Part of that argument was about the offense which, even in their recent malaise, has come up with the hit that they needed. The other part was about David Robertson's ability to pull off amazing escapes under pressure.

Robertson spit the bit as well on Wednesday, walking his way into trouble and giving up the tying run in the eighth inning. That's unfortunate, as is the fact that Buddy Carlyle and Luis Ayala couldn't shut the Royals down in the 11th inning.

When you put yourself in a position to rely on Carlyle and Ayala, though, you pretty much deserve what you get. Burnett deserved to win Wednesday, but he played for a team that deserved to lose.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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