Twins crushed 10-2 as Barnes struggles in Yankee Stadium debut

NEW YORK — Yankee Stadium, both of them, has swallowed up plenty of rookie pitchers over the years, and will again. The brightest stage in the biggest city with the most intimidating dimensions and occasionally frightening lineup is a challenge that even Hall of Famers have flunked.

Bob Feller lasted only one inning in his first start here (well, across the street in the old barn), allowing five quick runs in 1936. Lefty Grove, considered by many the greatest left-hander of all time, gave up six runs in his Bronx debut in 1925. More recently, Twins rookies like Scott Diamond, Kevin Slowey and Matt Garza each survived less than five innings in New York and surrendered five runs apiece.

So welcome to New York, Charlie Barnes. Your pain is practically a baseball hazing ritual.

Barnes, the soft-spoken lefthander just five games into his career, pitched five jittery innings Friday, sacrificing his nerves, his ego and certainly his ERA for the good of a short-handed Twins team in a 10-2 loss.

The fact that it was the Twins' 18th loss in their past 20 Yankee Stadium games, including playoffs, means it will simply fade into the multitudes for most Twins fans. It may be a little more difficult for Barnes to forget.

Or will it? Barnes said the fault was his control, not his spine, and insisted they had nothing to do with each other.

"I don't think [nervousness] was the case at all. I just have to do a better job of attacking the zone and not try to nibble," the 25-year-old South Carolinian said. "I wouldn't say the dimensions or anything like that had anything to do with it."

OK then. But whatever the reason, he appeared overmatched during a 37-pitch first inning in which he was responsible for only two of the outs.

Barnes got down 3-0 and 3-1 and walked the first two hitters he faced, with several pitches missing the strike zone not by an inch or two but 10-15 inches. After Joey Gallo swung at a couple of pitches well outside the zone and struck out, Barnes hit Giancarlo Stanton on the foot with an errant sinker. Luke Voit followed with the hardest-hit ball of the night, a 108-mph liner to left that scored two runs.

BOXSCORE: Yankees 10, Twins 2

After a popout, Gary Sanchez smacked a ball off Barnes' glove and into left field, loading the bases again, and Barnes forced in a run by walking light-hitting shortstop Andrew Velazquez on five pitches, four of them far outside. The inning mercifully ended when Brett Gardner, who nearly missed a grand slam on a long foul ball, singled home a fourth run, but Sanchez was thrown out at the plate by left fielder Rob Refsnyder.

The second inning began with a DJ LeMahieu single and an Aaron Judge home run, and for the second straight night, the Twins faced a 6-0 deficit. It only got bigger, too, with Voit and LeMahieu hitting homers. Josh Donaldson hit his 17th as well, accounting for both of the Twins' runs off Yankee left-hander Nelson Cortes.

"The biggest thing was just the free passes. I gave way too many free bases, with five walks and two hit-by-pitches," Barnes said. "It's something that can't happen. It's unacceptable."

To his credit, though, Barnes didn't give shirk from his most important task: preserving bullpen arms. In fact, he threw 109 pitches, more than any Twin has thrown in any game this season. The final toll: Five innings, seven runs, and an ERA that has ballooned, despite a couple of promising starts against the Tigers and Rays, to 6.56.

"Getting as many pitches and as many outs as we could was very important. He knew that," Baldelli said of his take-one-for-the-team starter. "You may not see the benefits of it now, but [now] we're not behind in the bullpen. We lost a game, which we're out there to win, but he was able to keep pitching, keep competing, and I patted him on the back for that."