The Yankees lost a heartbreaker tonight to the lowly Rays in the ultimate anticlimactic fashion, a walkoff, er, walk in the bottom of the eleventh. With men at the corners and two outs, the Yankees tried the all-time "high percentage" bad call of intentionally walking the bases full to get a) the possibility of an out at every base and b) a more favorable matchup at the plate (Jonny Gomes, who had struck out thrice in his previous at-bats in the game, instead of Aubrey Huff). Of course, Scott Proctor came nowhere near the plate with his next four pitches, thereby losing the game.

Proctor was brought into the game after Alan Embree gave up a one-out double to Carl Crawford. He promptly balked Crawford to third in about the most obvious fashion that I have ever seen. The only way he could have made it more obvious would have been if he held up a copy of the rule book and pointed to rule 8.01 (a)(3) [i.e., "From [the windup position] position [the pitcher] may: (3) disengage the rubber (if he does he must drop his hand to his sides). In disengaging the rubber the pitcher must step off with his pivot foot and not his free foot first. He may not go into a set or stretch position if he does it is a balk.]

Actually, the game seemed lost after Mariano Rivera came in to save a 3-2 lead in the ninth and gave up a one-out bullet to left to Eduardo Perez that tied the game. Actually, the YES crew were trying to homer a Jeffrey Maier call out of the play. The replay seemed inconclusive to me.

That Perez homer cost the D-Rays their first complete game of the year as Doug Waechter went nine strong innings for the apparent loss. Though they are a dying breed, there has never been a major-league team that went an entire season without at least one CG. The only teams with 1 CG for an entire year are:

2004 New York Yankees
2003 Houston Astros
2002 Colorado Rockies
2001 Tampa Bay Devil Rays
1995 Colorado Rockies

Also, the Reds and Rockies this year have just one so far. (Mussina had the one CG last year for the Yankees.)