BOSTON — The body count is mounting again for the Yankees, turning their lineup back to May and their bullpen to maybes — or worse.
So their only two chances to win the first two games against the Red Sox were named Hiroki Kuroda and CC Sabathia.
Not long ago that would have been just fine with the Yanks. But now neither can control a game. They lack crispness and consistency to their stuff. Kuroda, 38, is battling fatigue, Sabathia mechanics. Both still offer gladiator spirits, a willingness to take the ball and find a way to survive without their best stuff.
However, survival is as good as it got at Fenway. Both lasted six innings. Both gave up five runs. Kuroda left too many outs for a bedraggled pen. Sabathia left too large a deficit for a bedeviled offense.
Thus, the Yankees lost the first two games of this series, two more games off the schedule and a little bit more hope of securing the wild card.
This is not a funeral. A Red Sox win on Sunday would eliminate the Yanks from the AL East chase. But it also takes a Boston team that appears beyond these Yanks’ weight class off the schedule. What remains afterward are three last-place clubs — Toronto, San Francisco and Houston — and pure opportunity with three games vs. Tampa Bay.
However, after the Red Sox’s 5-1 triumph Saturday, the Yanks appeared like an NBA team that cut a 25-point halftime deficit down to four, but then didn’t have enough left to finish the deal. We have been waiting all year for the strain that breaks the camel’s back. That could be here as a wave of September injuries — Derek Jeter, Boone Logan, Austin Romine, Alex Rodriguez, Brett Gardner and Alfonso Soriano — have created domino effects that impact every phase of the game.
What seems an even minor loss — that of Jayson Nix — has left the Yanks without a good defensive alternative at third, and poor play by Eduardo Nunez and Mark Reynolds hurt Kuroda and Sabathia.
The impact of injury and workload left Joe Girardi without good options to replace Kuroda with the score 4-4 on Friday, one on and no outs in the seventh. Kuroda had just expended too many pitches in weathering the opening three innings, notably a 33-pitch, four-run first. Thus, in a vital game, rookies Cesar Cabral and Preston Claiborne were asked to do jobs beyond their current capacities.
Saturday, Girardi admitted to having to “scramble” 40 minutes before first pitch when Soriano’s sprained left thumb worsened during batting practice and he had to be removed from the lineup. Gardner’s absence already made the order feel shorter. And A-Rod’s hamstring injury is limiting him to DH and seemingly robbing him of some vitality in his swing.
Suddenly, the lineup devolved from force to farce again. Without Soriano at all and Rodriguez in the field, Girardi started Ichiro Suzuki and Lyle Overbay (Mark Reynolds moving to third to cover for A-Rod). That gave lefty Jon Lester six easy outs. J.R. Murphy made his first major league start because Romine’s injury essentially has forced Chris Stewart to be overplayed. Brendan Ryan, who hit eighth or ninth in 139 of his final 140 starts for the lowly Mariners, joined David Adams, Luis Cruz and Brent Lillibridge among the motley crew who have batted seventh for the Yanks this year.
So the onus was on Sabathia. He went 1-2-3 in a seven-pitch first. Over the next four innings, the Red Sox went 8-for-15 with four walks, two sacrifices and a sac fly for five runs. Credit a disciplined Boston lineup that does not swing often at balls and, when ahead of the count, does monster damage.
“I have always been bend-but-don’t-break, and I have broken a lot this year,” Sabathia said.
He has tinkered with his delivery, feels he is getting closer to staying atop the ball so that his fastball does not cut toward the middle of the plate, but the inconsistency remains elusive while the frustration is overt because “I want results, the team wants results and the fans want results.”
Time is running out for that. He has the responsibility and muscle memory to go over 200 innings for the fifth time in five years as a Yankee. But his 4.90 ERA would be the second-worst ever (Randy Johnson, 5.00, 2006) for a Yankee with that many innings.
It is a fall from ace — a journey Kuroda has undertaken, as well. And the Yanks are falling with them.