Clearwater, Fla., March 6, 2016; Phillies 6, Yankees 5 — There are plenty of reasons to not get invested in team success or failure in Spring Training games, but by far, the unbearable, unending, utterly disastrous inning is the No. 1 culprit.

The Yanks fell 6-5 to the Phillies in Clearwater Sunday, a marathon affair that started out as tightly played, one the Yanks easily could have won 1-0, or 2-0. Masahiro Tanaka, although his pitches never broke 90 mph, was effective through two frames, even if it did take a stellar play starting a double play by Rob Refsnyder, playing at third for perhaps the first time, to keep Philly from scoring.

Refsnyder doubled his heroics by leading off the third against ex-Pirates starter Charlie Morton with a sharp single, moving up a base on an 11-pitch Lane Adams walk, and scoring the game’s first run on a Starlin Castro one-base hit up the middle.
And Refsnyder almost made his game a three-star affair, as he stole second and third after walking to start the fifth. Adams followed with a walk and broke for second, beating the throw, but he came off the bag and was tagged out. In a one-run game, that Rob failed to score after a strike out and fly to right was huge.

That failure left the visitors clinging to a precarious 1-0 lead. Free agent signer, righthander, and former Twin Anthony Swarzak was superb blanking the Phils through the fourth, with two strike outs, and southpaw James Pazos survived a sloppy fifth despite back-to-back, two-out walks. Then the Yanks not only failed to score in the sixth, they popped out to short three times around a hit by pitch.

And it was time for the March miscue, a biggee, as righty Chad Green took the mound in the bottom of the sixth. Falling behind virtually every hitter, he allowed three hits, two walks, and recorded two outs, each a sac fly, though much could have been saved if Austin Romine’s swipe tag of Ben Gamel’s throw could have caught Angelys Nina scoring the second run.

A following single added a third run to Green’s line, then 2015 vet Branden Pinder blew it up, feeding a three-run home run ball to DH Andrew Knapp, 6-1 Phils.

The visitors get a little credit, or unlikely almost hero Romine does, for two-run rallies in the seventh and eighth that made it close, and forged the final score. Romine drove doubles to right, then left center, driving in three of the runs. But the Phillies helped, with one called error, two not called, and three walks.

Aside from already acknowledged good work from Refsnyder, who looked comfortable at third; Tanaka; Swarzak: and Castro; kudos go out to Gary Sanchez, who ran Nina toward an occupied second base once he was caught off first, tagging him out, and who made a clever play tagging out Cedric Hunter once his foul tip hit the plate and rolled about one inch fair.

So a loss it was, an ugly one, even if by one run. But it was more gorgeous even then the last two days. And, as the roving beer seller said to me just before first pitch: “It’s hot, it’s beautiful. If you can’t be happy at a Spring Training game, when can you?”

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!