Experience Tops Youth as Garcia Halts Rays

  The Tampa Bay Rays continued one of the more amazing streaks in modern baseball Wednesday night, starting a pitcher younger than 30 years old for the 698th consecutive game. Their ability to identify, draft and develop talent has helped them compete in a cutthroat division against the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees, who opted to assemble this year’s rotation through different means.

On display for the Yankees at Tropicana Field on Wednesday was a 34-year-old veteran starter who agreed to a minor league deal in January, not even receiving the safety of a guaranteed contract.

That pitcher, Freddy Garcia, lifted the Yankees to a 4-0 victory, working six and two-thirds innings to outduel the Rays’ superb 25-year-old left-hander, David Price. Garcia scattered eight hits and struck out seven without issuing a walk, rebounding from a poor outing last Friday in Toronto. The wild-card-leading Yankees hold a six-and-a-half-game lead over Tampa Bay with their ace, C. C. Sabathia, scheduled to pitch Thursday night.

Burnett Cools Just as Yanks Warm Up

 Of all the things that can happen on a baseball diamond, perhaps nothing infuriates A. J. Burnett more than his failure to preserve a lead. The circumstances are irrelevant; it is his job, and his only job, to uphold the covenant between a pitcher and his teammates, particularly in the sort of low-scoring game that developed Monday night.

A deflating feeling washed over Burnett at Progressive Field, where the Cleveland Indians countered the Yankees’ two-run seventh by rallying for four runs in the bottom of the inning to roll to a 6-3 victory, spoiling Derek Jeter’s return to the lineup.

Burnett bemoaned the damage that was self-inflicted — two walks, each scoring — more than the pivotal hits by two former teammates, a two-out run-scoring single by Shelley Duncan and a three-run homer by Austin Kearns.

In his clubhouse, Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez shared a different view. From their perspective, the pitch that produced the most harm did not result in a run or even land in fair territory. It was the 1-0 fastball that Burnett threw to Lonnie Chisenhall with a runner on first and two outs in the seventh.

Chisenhall lofted a fly tight to the left-field line that sent Gardner and Rodriguez in pursuit. Rodriguez admitted to getting a poor jump. Gardner felt he called him off too late. The ball dropped, and Chisenhall went on to work an eight-pitch walk. As Kearns’s homer zipped toward the right-field seats, Rodriguez could not stop thinking about that missed chance.

Unseeded Lisicki Upsets Bartoli to Reach Semifinals

A somber Marion Bartoli of France, a former finalist seeded ninth, lost to Sabine Lisicki of Germany, an unseeded wild-card entrant, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-1, in the Wimbledon quarterfinals Tuesday at the All England Club.

Lisicki, recovering from injury and ranked 62nd in the world, broke into a wide grin when Bartoli’s final forehand found the net. She is the first German to reach the women’s semifinals since Steffi Graf in 1999.

“I have absolutely nothing to lose and I’m just going to fight,” she told a courtside interviewer who pointed out that she was two victories from the championship.

Played under a Centre Court roof that shielded the players from a heavy London thunderstorm, it was an oddly jittery encounter, punctuated by Bartoli’s eccentric jumping antics as she awaited Lisicki’s serve.

After a vigorous extended rally, Lisicki clipped a backhand down the line and out of Bartoli’s reach to clinch the first set in 43 minutes, hitting 18 winners and 4 aces.

With 18 Hits, the Yankees Are Humming Again

 There was no meeting, no pep talk, no nothing after the Yankees were embarrassed by Boston last week. “Report at 4 o’clock the next day, that was it,” Curtis Granderson said. Every series has its own pace, its own rhythm. And at Yankee Stadium the thump-thump-thump of the Red Sox has given way to the off-key stylings of the Cleveland Indians.

The first three games of this four-game set in the Bronx have produced three resounding victories by the Yankees, who clobbered the Indians, 9-1, on Sunday afternoon behind a season-high 18 hits, but none that left the ballpark, which no doubt appeased the chorus of critics claiming that home runs are the Yankees’ tragic flaw.

After homering in the previous two games, Granderson settled for three singles and a double Sunday, scoring twice and driving in two. Alex Rodriguez (three R.B.I.) and Brett Gardner (three runs scored) added three hits each. Derek Jeter went 2 for 5 with a pair of run-scoring singles, increasing his career hit total to 2,993, to help back a solid outing by Freddy Garcia, who rebounded from a miserable start Tuesday against Boston by allowing one run in six and two-thirds innings.

“I hope I don’t do it with seven hits in one game,” Jeter said of reaching the 3,000-hit plateau. “That’s a long time to be out there.”