Yankees 8, Indians 0: Carmona clipped, exits after 2-2/3 innings

CLEVELAND — Fausto Carmona has given the Indians an opportunity to win nearly every time he has taken the mound this season.

Wednesday night, however, the right-hander ensured there was no chance for victory.

Bombed early and often, Carmona produced his worst effort of the year to pave the way for an 8-0 loss to the Yankees, who for the third straight night were deprived of celebrating Alex Rodriguez’s 600th home run.

Rodriguez reached base for the first time in the series, going 2-for-5 with a double and an RBI.

Lasting a season-low 2 2/3 innings, Carmona was roasted for seven runs on 10 hits, losing for the first time since July 4 to snap a personal three-game winning streak.

“Fausto just didn’t have it today,” said Cleveland manager Manny Acta. “For some reason everything was hard. There wasn’t much difference between his fastball and change-up. His sinker was up and his secondary pitches weren’t very effective.

“That’s the wrong lineup not to have your pitches working for you.”

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Carmona allowed four runs over the first two innings, then fell apart in the third, surrendering three more before being mercifully removed. He allowed four of the first five hitters to reach base in the third — two doubles (Robinson Cano and Brett Garnder), a triple (Curtis Granderson) and a hit batter (Francisco Cervelli).

“I tried to throw strikes,” Carmona said. “I was up a little bit and allowed a lot of base hits. I don’t know what happened. Sometimes I threw my change-up too hard. It was almost like my fastball.”

Though he was facing the best team in baseball (64-36), Carmona said it had nothing to do with his poor performance.

“I don’t care if it’s the Yankees, but I might have had a little too much energy,” Carmona said. “I tried to slow down but I couldn’t.”

New York scored all of its runs over the first four innings. As evidenced by the final score, pitching wasn’t a problem for the Yankees.

Starter A.J. Burnett, who entered the night with mediocre numbers — 8-8, 4.77 ERA — worked one of his best outings of the year, shutting out Cleveland on seven hits while striking out seven over 6 1/3 innings. The Indians had runners aboard in every inning that Burnett worked but never made the right-hander pay.

“We had some traffic out there,” Acta said, “but it seemed like every time we got something going, A.J. stepped it up and made big pitches. He had that electric fastball.”

The Indians’ best chance to score arrived in their last atbat. Travis Hafner led off with a walk, then moved to second when Austin Kearns walked.

Both runners stayed put after Matt LaPorta and Andy Marte flew out against Sergio Mitre and Jason Donald struck out to end the game.

Hafner and Trevor Crowe accounted for five of Cleveland’s eight hits. Crowe went 3for-4 with three singles, while Hafner reached base in three of his four trips to the plate, walking once and delivering singles in his last two at-bats.

Crowe is batting .347 (17-for-49) with four doubles, a triple, a home run and six RBIs over his last 14 games. Hafner is hitting .378 (17-for-45) with three doubles, a homer and four RBIs over his last 13 games.

The start of the game was delayed 42 minutes by rain. It ended with the Indians being shut out for an American League-high ninth time.