The Gulf Coast Yankees did the unthinkable on Tuesday: they played all of the baseball they were supposed to play. The Biblical rains in the Tampa area that have wreaked havoc with the baseball schedule have finally subsided, and that allowed the GCL Yankees 1 and 2 to play double headers against the Astros and Blue Jays respectively. That was the good news. The bad news was that all of that indoor batting practice has apparently not been helpful to Yankee hitters, and both teams were swept.
The Yankees 1 were dropped by the Astros 2-1 and 8-2 on the road. The first game was a walk-off win for the Astros, with Yankees 1 reliever and losing pitcher Andrew Chin recording only one out in the final inning in the process of walking in the winning run. The Yankees 1 did manage nine hits that only yielded the one run, and second baseman Bryan Cuevas, designated hitter Joey Falcone, and third baseman Manny Argomaniz put up two-hit games. Danienger Perez and Jerry Seitz chipped in doubles and Leonardo Molina knocked in the only run.
In the second game the Astros left little doubt, beating up both Yankees 1 pitchers, Abel Duarte (3-1) and Francis Joseph. The Yankees 1 had only two hits, a Wilkerman Garcia single and a Danienger Perez double.
The Yankees 2 were beaten twice by the Blue Jays, 5-3 and 3-2 in Dunedin. The first game started well for the Yankees 2, with pitchers Christian Morris and Paddy O’Brien throwing five shutout innings and striking out a combined nine hitters. Staked to a 3-0 lead, relievers Gean Batista and Claudio Custodio gave up five runs in the final two innings to suffer the loss.
The Yankees 2 had runs driven in by Isiah Gilliam, Andy Diaz, and Jose Infante, and Renzo Martini had two hits.
The second game was just a mess for the Yankees 2. The offense had only three hits, the defense made four errors, and starter Jeff Degano (0-3) had the team in a 3-0 hole by the third inning. Perhaps the two bright spots for the Yankees 2 were a Pedro Urena home run and three shutout innings from Dallas Martinez.
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