DETROIT — Nine batters kept going around and around the bases, 90 feet at a time for the most part, dropping in hits against one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Generating hits and runs has been a persistent challenge this year for the Yankees, who ranked 12th in the 15-team American League in hits entering Wednesday’s game against David Price and the Detroit Tigers, with a lineup that generally bears no resemblance to the Bronx Bombers of the past.
But in a conga line of an inning that defied all expectations, that lineup became a juggernaut, hammering out nine consecutive hits and eight runs on what appeared to be a loop tape and paving the way for an 8-4 victory.
It was as if the entire team were taking a round of batting practice.
“It was amazing,” said the Yankees’ hitting coach, Kevin Long, who watched proudly from the bench. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You always say, ‘Everyone get a hit,’ but they literally did it.”
That the onslaught happened against Price, who was 10-5 against the Yankees in his career going into the game, was all the more remarkable. Price had not given up nine hits in any of his last 14 starts, dating to June 4, when he allowed nine in seven and one-third innings. In his last three starts, he had allowed a combined nine hits, and his batting average against this season was .227, the sixth-lowest mark in the A.L.
But in the third inning, the Yankees batted 1.000 against him. They now trail division-leading Baltimore by six games and are two and a half behind Seattle for the second wild-card spot.
While Price, the 2012 A.L. Cy Young Award winner, had perhaps his worst outing, Yankees starter Shane Greene pitched marvelously once again. He allowed two runs and eight hits and struck out eight to raise his record to 4-1. The Yankees have won in each of his last five starts.
Price started well, too, striking out the side in the first. He gave up a couple of hits in the second, but the Yankees did not score. Then came the haunting third.
The eight runs were the most the Yankees had scored in one inning all season. The only Yankee who did not score in the inning was Francisco Cervelli, the No. 9 hitter.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last A.L. team to collect hits in nine straight plate appearances was the Tigers, against the Toronto Blue Jays in 1996. St. Louis did it against Pittsburgh last year.
Most of the Yankees, like Long, said they had not seen anything like it.
“Maybe in a Little League game,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “Sometimes it just happens. The game doesn’t always make sense.”
It all began innocently enough when Jacoby Ellsbury, the first batter of the inning, singled to right. Derek Jeter followed with a run-scoring double to right, which was followed by a single to left by Martin Prado. The fourth hit came off the bat of Mark Teixeira, who doubled into the right-field corner and pushed home Jeter.
That elicited a visit from the Tigers’ pitching coach, Jeff Jones, if only to give Price a breather. It did not work. Carlos Beltran singled off the wall in right field to score Prado, and Brian McCann’s flare landed safely in center field.
“Really, we were just going base to base,” Beltran said.
By that point, Price was trying to suppress his frustration, but there was more to come. Chase Headley, the seventh batter, rapped out the seventh hit, a ground ball through the hole on the left side of the infield, and Brett Gardner reached on a soft bouncer to the shortstop, Eugenio Suarez, who had no play, for the eighth hit. Finally, Cervelli put the last touch on the canvas, another ground-ball single for the team’s ninth consecutive hit.
It was not as if the Yankees had thrashed Price, exactly, other than the two doubles and Beltran’s ball off the wall, but the sheer volume was staggering.
Mercifully, Manager Brad Ausmus took Price out of the game, and there were no more hits. Still, the next two batters had productive plate appearances. Ellsbury and Jeter both hit sacrifice fly balls off Blaine Hardy, and the Yankees had an eight-run lead.
The last out, a grounder to third by Prado, came on the 12th plate appearance of the inning and was the only one that did not result in a hit or a run.
“It was fun,” Jeter said, “but you don’t see that very often.”
INSIDE PITCH
The Yankees signed the former Mets outfielder CHRIS YOUNG to a minor league contract, and he could be called up after rosters expand on Sept. 1. ... In a large pregame ceremony, the Tigers honored Derek Jeter, who grew up in nearby Kalamazoo. AL KALINE, WILLIE HORTON and Jeter’s family were on hand. The Tigers presented him with a $5,000 check for his Turn 2 Foundation. ... The Yankees donated $100,000 to the A.L.S. Association, and Manager Joe Girardi did the Ice Bucket Challenge to help raise more money to combat the disease.
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