Alex Rodriguez (above) reacts after striking out for the third time during his 0-for-5 performance. (
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HIROKI KURODA: Unable to get out of sixth inning. (Reuters)
The Yankees left Fenway Park on Sept. 14 tied for first place. After a homestand in which they won seven of nine games, they left The Bronx with just a one-game lead over Baltimore thanks to a 5-4 loss to the A’s yesterday.
But manager Joe Girardi isn’t complaining about where his team is after seeing its seven-game winning streak snapped.
“It’s better than the alternative, right?” the manager said of his team’s first-place standing. “I like the way we’re playing. I like the fight in our guys.”
Tonight, they start a seven-game trip with a series in Minnesota, with just 10 games remaining on the schedule — all against teams under .500
“There probably aren’t going to be any easy ones,” Russell Martin said. “So we have to treat every team like a playoff team.”
The A’s could be one, even if they didn’t look like it this weekend. They won yesterday despite some shoddy defense, thanks in part to another mediocre start from Hiroki Kuroda.
The veteran right-hander couldn’t get out of the sixth inning and has gone from looking like an ace a month ago to slumping in his last four starts in September.
After giving up five runs, four earned, yesterday, he’s now 2-1 with a 5.63 ERA in that span.
“He left some offspeed pitches over the plate,” Girardi said of Kuroda, now 14-11. “But he’s keeping us in the game.”
Eduardo Nunez’s key sixth-inning error put the winning run on base and Kuroda was also hurt by a blown call by first base umpire Larry Vanover on Josh Donaldson’s grounder in the second. Cliff Pennington followed with a two-run homer.
“It’s one run and we lost by one run,” Girardi said. “I thought he was out by about a step. I didn’t even think it was close. He thought he beat it. It’s unfortunate.”
The Yankees had other opportunities. Nick Swisher’s two-run homer sparked a four-run fourth inning that put the Yankees up 4-3, but Kuroda gave the lead back the next inning.
And Alex Rodriguez, booed after every out he made, nearly tied the game with one out in the ninth, but Josh Reddick pulled in his fly ball at the wall in right.
“I thought it had a chance,” Girardi said. “It needed another three feet, is what it needed. It just didn’t have it.”
They kept their slim lead in the division because the Orioles lost to the Red Sox, a fact the Yankees were keenly aware of.
“We see the scoreboard all year long,” Girardi said. “Do you look at it with a little bit more importance now? Sure. But I think our guys have been focused on what we’re doing and not what everyone else is doing.”
And they know what the challenges are ahead of them.
“Are we supposed to beat the teams we are supposed to beat? Yeah,” Eric Chavez said. “We need to go ahead and have another good week and try to finish this thing up as good as we can. There are two things at stake: Obviously, we want to get in, but we want to be playing well to get in, too. We don’t want to back up into it. We want to gain some momentum.”
They have 10 games to accomplish both goals and Martin insists the team is enjoying the ride.
“It’s been intense,” Martin said. “This is the fun part.”