“Obviously, he had a tough debut,” Leyland said. “He’s very talented. The tiers on the stadium, it’s tougher to pick up the ball. He’s going to be fine. He’ll play tomorrow. I think he was probably a little anxious.”

Maybin, normally a center fielder, said shifting to left was difficult.

“Oh man, it’s different. The ball goes all different ways. It’s an adjustment I have to make,” he said. “I didn’t do anything well tonight. I never let the game come to me. I’m happy to have the first one out of the way, absolutely. I was jacked up tonight. Now I can go out and relax. With repetition, everything will come along.”

After rain delayed the start for 74 minutes, Brandon Inge put Detroit ahead with an RBI double in the third inning.

New York caught a big break in the bottom half. With two on and two outs, Abreu hit a routine grounder to shortstop that took a bad hop and skipped over Carlos Guillen for an RBI single. Rodriguez followed with a ground-rule double.

Phillips added a two-run double to left-center in the sixth to make it 5-1.

“I had a good bead on it. I had a great jump. I just lost it in the lights,” Maybin said.

Robertson allowed 10 hits over six innings and dropped to 1-5 against the Yankees. He hasn’t beaten them since July 18, 2004.

Notes: Sheffield is 0-for-7 in the series. ... Monroe was designated for assignment. ... Yankees LF Hideki Matsui extended his hitting streak to 12 games. ... Maybin struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat.

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