Baseball briefs

Yankees' offense in hiding as Rasner drops decision

MLB.com

NEW YORK " Darrell Rasner persevered over five innings, but the 1999 Carson High School graduate was outpitched by Oliver Perez as the Yankees dropped the finale to the Mets. The Bombers, who took two out of three at Shea, only produced one run " a Wilson Betemit homer in the seventh.

Alex Rodriguez sent a soaring drive toward the left-field wall, but his would-be home run shot dropped harmlessly; the Yankees soon similarly fell, suffering a 3-1 defeat to the Mets on Sunday.

The Yankees' offense struggled to provide the right-handed Rasner with support. It was a game that Rodriguez said the Yankees should have won, on an afternoon when Rasner dodged damage through five innings.

"We knew if we could get a couple of runs that Rasner could hold them down, which he sort of did,"Johnny Damon said. "But he's been our tough-luck pitcher this year. We haven't scored him runs and his record shows it."

Though he burned 102 pitches doing so, Rasner (4-6) held the Mets to just two runs, and though he lost five of his six June starts, it should be considered progress.

"You throw [102] pitches in five innings and you look up and they've got eight hits; obviously, he could have given up a lot more runs than he did," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

With Rasner lifted after five innings, Girardi made good on his desire to get rookie David Robertson into a game quickly. Added to the roster on Saturday, the 23-year-old was touched for one run in the sixth inning, allowing two hits, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly to David Wright, but he hurled a scoreless seventh and Edwar Ramirez silenced the Mets in the eighth.

As for Rasner, he was left to take whatever positives he could and wonder when the deluge of run support might start to benefit his cause.

"It's just a matter of time," Rasner said. "I'm just waiting for these guys to bust out like they have pretty much all year. [Scoring] two runs with this team, it's nothing."

Cardinals fall short against Galena

The Carson Cardinals came up on the wrong end of a 10-2 decision to Galena on Sunday.

After Galena scored three first-inning runs, the Cardinals stranded three baserunners in the opening frame.

Tommy Preston had a hand in both Carson runs, scoring on a Matt Rutledge sacrifice fly in the third and doubling in Brett Valley in the seventh.

Cody Barr, Rutledge and David Perce saw action on the mound for the Cardinals, who will return to action July 7 when they visit South Tahoe.

Muckdogs upend the Bighorns

The Reno Muckdogs came through with a ninth-inning RBI triple to take a 7-6 victory over the Nevada Bighorns in a seesaw game Sunday at John L. Harvey Field.

Marshall Kennebrew, of Western Nevada College, drove in Jeff Young with a single to give the Bighorns a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

The Muckdogs came back with a pair of runs in the top of the third to take a 2-1 lead, but the Bighorns responded with three runs in the bottom of the frame.

Adam Anderson's RBI double, Nick Nyman's RBI single and Kevin Schlange's RBI single put Nevada up 4-2.

Nyman, of San Francisco State University, went 2-for-5, while Carson High School graduate and WNC infielder Schlange finished 1-for-4.

The Muckdogs took advantage of a three-run homer off Jesse Rasner and rallied for a four-run fifth inning to take a 6-4 lead.

Rasner started, giving up six runs, five hits, three walks and striking out two over six innings. Blake Nahlem went two innings and D.J. Simen took the loss, giving up the triple in the ninth.

Royal Good and Henry added RBI singles to tie it 6-6 the eighth.