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Duncan homers twice as Yankees embarrass Devil Rays

Jul 22, 2007 - 10:33 PM BRONX, New York (Ticker) -- At the plate it was quite a weekend for Shelley Duncan and the rest of the New York Yankees.

Duncan homered twice and knocked in four runs as the Yankees embarrassed the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 21-4, on Sunday.

Alex Rodriguez also hit his 498th career homer for the Yankees, who went deep six times in their best offensive performance in over two years.

The latest outburst by the Yankees featured a 10-run bottom of the fourth inning. Duncan hit a three-run homer to cap the uprising, then added a solo blast two frames later.

"It's fun," New York manager Joe Torre said. "It's nice to see this kid, who's been working hard in the minor leagues for six years and then get an opportunity."

In all four games of this series, there was plenty of offensive firepower. The Devil Rays scored 14 in the series opener on Friday but in less than 24 hours, the Yankees have scored 45 runs, pounding out 53 hits.

"It was great," said Rodriguez, who reached 99 RBI. "Even though the games go long, they're much quicker when you're winning."

Torre watched his team record 20 hits in consecutive games for the first time in franchise history. The 38 combined runs in the last two games are two shy of the franchise-record set on May 23-24, 1936 at Philadelphia.

"I've never seen anything like this," Torre said. "Even in batting practice, you don't get hits every time you swing the bat. This was certainly pretty incredible and to be able to continue to get hit after hit after hit after hit, after hit and the home runs and all that stuff (was impressive)."

"You're not going to see this too often," New York captain Derek Jeter said. "It's one of those things you can't explain."

In this one, the Yankees turned a 3-3 game into a blowout with a 29-minute inning. In the fourth, they sent 14 men to the plate and collected eight hits.

One of those hits was Duncan's home run to left field off reliever Casey Fossum. It was the second home run in as many days for Duncan, who narrowly missed a three-run shot in his major league debut Friday and capped a five-run sixth inning in the first game Saturday's doubleheader with a solo blast in a 7-3 win.

Duncan has three home runs in last six at-bats. He is the first Yankee to hit as many as three home runs in his first four games since 1947.

"You hear people always ask the questions like what did you dream of your first hit, your first home run, to be honest, I never really had those," Duncan said. "I don't know why. I never really thought about it. I play this game. I play it to win. I play it for fun. It's a blast for me and everything I do out there I enjoy, no matter where it is."

Before the 27-year-old crushed Fossum's 3-2 offering and received his second curtain call in as many days, the Yankees battered Tampa Bay starter James Shields.

Shields (8-6) endured the worst outing of his brief career as he allowed 10 runs and 10 hits. His day ended after Hideki Matsui's RBI single made it 8-3.

"We just didn't pitch well, that's an understatement," Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. "They just wore us out and they beat us up every which way you can."

The Yankees opened a 3-1 lead on Matsui's two-run home run in the third but Tampa Bay tied it on Josh Wilson's two-run single in the fourth. In the bottom half, New York struck quickly and often en route to its ninth win in 12 games.

The Yankees had their first 10-run inning since September 4 at Kansas City and it started when Robinson Cano tripled to the right field corner. He scored when Andy Phillips singled and that put the Yankees ahead for good.

Phillips' go-ahead single was only the start. The Yankees had five more RBI hits and also scored another run on catcher Dioner Navarro's throwing error.

The Yankees hit six home runs in a game for the first time since July 21, 2005 at Texas. After Bobby Abreu hit a solo shot in the fifth, they kept pounding away in the sixth as Duncan opened the frame by crushing a 1-0 pitch from Shawn Camp into the right-center field bleachers.

"It's been great," New York starter Andy Pettitte said of Duncan. "It's awesome to see. I believe it's the first time he's been in the big leagues. What an exciting few days for him."

After Duncan's third home run in his last five at-bats, Rodriguez moved within two of the 500 mark when his major league-leading 34th home run of the season landed on the netting beyond the left field wall.

Besides hitting his 17th home run and ninth in 17 games, Matsui also had four singles. It was his first five-hit game during the regular season of his career.

The Yankees scored their 20th run of the contest with two outs in the eighth when Cano hit a two-run shot into the right-center field bleachers. That gave New York 20 runs for the first time since June 21, 2005 against Tampa Bay.

Every starter had a hit and an RBI and the barrage was capped by Melky Cabrera's RBI base hit in the eighth.

The Devil Rays lost three of four last weekend at home to the Yankees and also lost 11 games in a row recently. Unlike those games, they were never in this one as they allowed a franchise-record 25 hits and allowed the second-most runs in team history - one shy of the franchise record set in a 22-4 loss at Boston on July 23, 2002.

"It's embarrassing," Shields said. "It's absoulutely embarrasing. This wasn't us this weekend. We're better than that."

"I think you can use whatever word you like," Tampa Bay left fielder Jonny Gomes said. "You can use four-letter words, 13-letter words. They could all fit somewhere."

All of the offense made a winner out of Andy Pettitte (6-6), who allowed three runs and eight hits in six innings and also set a season high with eight strikeouts as he improved to 13-1 lifetime against Tampa Bay.

A majority of Pettitte's starts have been close games so to keep loose during the 10-run inning, he spent some time in the clubhouse throwing a ball against a wall.

After the big inning, Pettitte was on his way to winning his 12th straight decision against Tampa Bay and also recorded his most strikeouts since fanning 10 hitters on August 21, 2006 at Cincinnati.

"We scored 10, I think I sat in there for like 40 minutes. That's tough but I just tried to stay loose, try to throw up against a wall a little bit in here and stuff like that," he said. "More than anything, it's just mentally. I'm glad I can go back out there and get through it."

The Yankees used every position player except newly acquired catcher Jose Molina. Molina was obtained from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and a front-row view of an offense that he saw pound his former team 12-0 two weeks ago.

With a thin bench, the Yankees had a relief pitcher bat in this one. Sean Henn was inserted into the cleanup spot and struck out in the eighth.