ROB JOY: Robinson Cano — who has gotten hot at the plate at just the right time for the pennant-chasing Yankees — is all smiles after scoring with Alex Rodriguez in the ninth inning of yesterday’s come-from-behind 9-6 victory in Toronto. (NY Post: Charles Wenzelberg)
TORONTO — In a Yankees clubhouse that emanated equal parts joy and relief, Robinson Cano offered wisdom that will make his team’s many fans nod in agreement.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re 2-for-4,” the Yankees second baseman and cleanup hitter said yesterday. “If you don’t get a hit in a big situation, then they don’t count.”
Yesterday counted for Cano. This whole road trip counted.
And the Yankees, having pulled off a come-from-behind, 9-6 victory over the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, departed Canada with realistic hopes of outlasting the Orioles in what has been an epic battle to capture the American League East.
“This team wants to win the division,” Nick Swisher said. “We feel good about where we are right now.”
Because they erased a 5-1 deficit against lowly Toronto, the Yankees remain tied with Baltimore (which defeated the Red Sox, 6-3) atop the division at 92-67 with three games to go. Both teams clinched playoff spots when the Angels lost a doubleheader nightcap in Texas.
The Yankees close their season at home against horrid Boston. The Orioles must travel to play the Rays, who are mathematically alive for a playoff spot and therefore will present a challenge to Buck Showalter’s magic makers.
There’s plenty over which the Yankees can worry, from how Mark Teixeira will fare upon his return to the lineup to Phil Hughes’ lousy outing yesterday to who will start tomorrow’s game — it can’t possibly be the slumping Ivan Nova, can it? But for now, they can feel awfully good about Cano, who has not awoken from a September slumber so much as he has shot out of bed and scaled the roof.
In the Yankees’ just-completed, seven-game road swing through Minnesota and Toronto, Cano compiled a .548 on-base percentage and .714 slugging percentage. Yesterday, he delivered a pair of doubles, the latter closing the Yankees to within 5-4, and even capitalized on a Blue Jays infield shift by bunting for a single in the ninth — his first bunt hit, Cano correctly remembered, since he did so on May 23, 2007, against Boston’s Curt Schilling.
In short, the Yankees’ most valuable player has played up to his pedigree during the most important time of the season.
“It’s nothing different. I would say luck,” Cano said. “I’ll keep doing what I was doing.”
His sixth-inning double against starter Henderson Alvarez came right after the Blue Jays’ three-run fifth and led to a run, cutting Toronto’s lead to 5-2. It also made it clear that the Yankees weren’t going to lose without a fight.
“It seemed like we kept at it, kept at it, kept picking away,” Joe Girardi said. “Our guys kept putting some good at-bats on them.”
And when the Yankees brought in another run in the seventh and put men on first and second with one out for Cano against reliever Steve Delabar, it felt like a defining moment.
“I know he’s a guy that has two pitches,” Cano said of Delabar, referring to the fastball and split-fingered fastball. A splitter came in the seventh pitch of the at-bat, after Cano fouled off two pitches, and rocketed past Jays first baseman Adam Lind into right field. Derek Jeter scored from second and Alex Rodriguez, running from first, had to hold up at third — only to score the tying run moments later on a wild pitch by new pitcher Aaron Loup.
As the Yankees’ bullpen silenced the Toronto offense, the Yankees went ahead with two runs in the eighth and piled on two insurance runs, thanks in part to Cano’s bunt single, in the ninth.
He thought the bunt was worth a shot, he explained: “If you sacrifice, you move the runner [A-Rod]. If not, it’s first and second.” He and A-Rod both scored on Curtis Granderson’s single.
Cano has just a .255 batting average with runners in scoring position for the season; he is one of the primary culprits in the team’s year-long struggle in the clutch. Yet this is a number that can easily be improved in October. There’s no amazing cure. You just start hitting when it matters.
To be anointed a “true Yankee” by the huddled masses, you have to know what counts. Cano gets it. And he’s getting the Yankees to where they want to be.