King Felix blocks basepath, leaves game with tweaked back as Yankees rally for win

Felix Hernandez was cruising along for six innings against the New York Yankees until a series of odd mishaps forced the Seattle Mariners starter to exit the game with a 3-1 lead.

King Felix's exit was preceded by a play at first base when he blocked the baseline and appeared to be pushed by Lyle Overbay as he raced to first. Overbay's push was incidental and was more of a courtesy  tap than a shove.

Hernandez, however, appeared to hurt himself later in the sixth when he fielded a comebacker, pivoted and threw to second for a forceout. The Seattle ace twice kicked his left leg near the mound, trying to get loose, and seemed to mouth the word "ouch" a few times.

Up to then, Hernandez had outpitched CC Sabathia in the first matchup between the former Cy Young Award winners.

Manager Eric Wedge and a trainer visited Hernandez and left him in. Overbay followed with an RBI double that made it 3-1. There was no announcement on whether Hernandez had tweaked something, was injured, or why he was pulled after 97 pitches.

Hernandez's removal gave the Yankees the opening they needed and Robinson Cano later hit a two-run double, Lyle Overbay delivered a tie-breaking sacrifice fly and the Bronx Bombers rallied to beat the Mariners 4-3 Tuesday night.

Hernandez allowed one earned run in another strong outing at Yankee Stadium, and leads the AL with a 1.53 ERA. Sabathia, who had won his last eight starts against Seattle, struck out 10 in 6 1-3 innings while giving up 10 hits.

Raul Ibanez hit a two-run homer for Seattle in his return to Yankee Stadium. New York star Curtis Granderson came off the disabled list and went 0 for 3 with a walk in his season debut.

Down 3-1, the Yankees rallied for three runs in the seventh to win for the seventh time in eight games.

R.A. Dickey didn't like Yankees' 'Eye-Gate' stall tactic

R.A. Dickey had just been rocked by Lyle Overbay's two-run homer as the Toronto Blue Jays knuckleballer got ready to throw one of his gimmicky pitches to the next batter. In the New York Yankees bullpen, David Robertson — who had just caught Overbay's dinger — was warming up to preserve the 3-2 Yankees lead.

Out in front of the dugout was that next batter — Eduardo Nunez — who was being treated by trainer Steve Donohue with eye wash. And Dickey didn't like it.

“What had happened, and it was fairly obvious to everyone in our dugout, was that Joe (Girardi) was trying to get (Nunez) to take some extra time so he could get Robertson warmed up in the bullpen,” Dickey said. “(It’s) just gamesmanship on his part.”

Dickey approached plate umpire Chris Conroy to voice his objection. Toronto manager John Gibbons came out of the dugout to ask Conroy about it. Before the debate could get any more heated, Nunez came to bat.

Even before Dickey opened his mouth, Girardi was asked about what was happening and said, “Nunie had something in his eye.”

Told of the accusation, Nunez said, “You can’t predict you’re going to have something in your eyes. It happens. It was only for a moment. Why he said that, I don’t know.”

The Yankees were stuck between a rock and a hard place.  There was no way Nunez was coming out of the game — with only sore Kevin Youkilis waiting as the only replacement infielder — and Girardi wasn't going to take chances on his already thin bench.

Dickey’s ire was more directed at the umpiring crew than at Girardi and the Yankees.

“It’s well within the confines of the rules, it’s just that the umpire needs to have a feel for the game and know what’s going on,” Dickey said. “It’s certainly not Joe’s fault. He’s doing what he can to get his team ready to win the game. It’s the umpire’s responsibility to know what’s going on there.”

The knuckleballer gave up four hits in seven innings but two of them were home runs.  The tough loss dropped Dickey to 2-4 with a 4.50 ERA as the Yankees completed the four-game sweep of their northern neighbors.

Yankees turn rare triple play against Orioles in 5-2 win

The New York Yankees turned a dramatic triple play in the eighth inning of Friday night's game against the Baltimore Orioles in a match-up full of wild plays.

In the seventh inning, Adam Jones dropped Vernon Wells' fly ball while blowing a bubble for a game-changing, three-run error, that helped New York beat the O's, 5-2, for its fourth straight win.

In front of a freezing Yankee Stadium crowd, New York turned the rare triple play after Baltimore started the eighth with two singles off CC Sabathia (2-1), and Manny Machado hit a sharp low liner at second baseman Robinson Cano.

Cano tossed it to shortstop Jayson Nix for the forceout at second. Nick Markakis, thinking the ball was going to be caught by Cano, got trapped in a rundown between second and third base.

Third baseman Kevin Youkilis tagged Markakis and then threw to first baseman Lyle Overbay when Machado ranged too far off the bag. Overbay then threw to Cano, who tagged Machado, setting off a giant celebration by New York.

That is 4-6-5-6-5-3-4 if you’re scoring the game at home and probably the last one like that you'll ever see.

CC Sabathia was superb for the Yankees. The big leftie went eight innings, struck out nine and gave up one earned run.

The last triple play by the Yankees was on April 22, 2010 against the Oakland A's.