Yankees officials recognized that finding an above-average starter was paramount in the offseason.
They had won the AL East with Chien-Ming Wang mainly absent and Joba Chamberlain enduring growing pains. They had captured the World Series largely because a postseason schedule overloaded with off-days enabled them to deploy just three starters.
They knew they should not try this again. So they inquired about Roy Halladay, but felt Toronto really was not interested in trading him within the AL East. They felt they never really got a chance with Cliff Lee. They liked John Lackey, but worried enough about his long-term health to be scared off by the contract length and dollars necessary to secure the best free-agent starter available.
In many ways their decision came down to Javier Vazquez in a trade or Joel Pineiro in free agency. Yes, the Mets are most often associated with Pineiro since they actually bid on the righty, but the Yanks were intrigued by the new, sinkerball version of Pineiro. They did fret, though, if he was a creation of Cardinals pitching guru Dave Duncan and whether he had enough stuff to navigate the AL East.
Vazquez worried the Yankees, too. Influential executives felt you should never reunite with a player who already had failed in The Bronx. Slowly, though, the Yankees convinced themselves that the price in both dollars and trade return were right. They satisfied themselves that Vazquez’s nightmare second half/postseason in 2004 was about the righty silently enduring a bad shoulder. He was older and wiser now, coming off of a phenomenal 2009 for the Braves.
Finally there was the stuff; Vazquez just had better weapons, the Yanks determined, than Pineiro.
But two starts into his pinstripe return, Vazquez has re-opened the wounds from 2004 because the stuff is not yet there. In a 5-3 loss to the Angels yesterday, Vazquez lacked life and faith in his fastball. You can win going from the NL to the AL or with an 89-mph fastball as Pineiro did yesterday. But Piniero did so with devilish downward movement on his sub-90 heat that led to just two of his 21 outs being recorded by outfielders as he held the Yanks to one run in seven innings.
Vazquez, though, was up in the zone and without a finishing pitch. He got ahead of 11 Angels either 0-2 or 1-2, and yet gave up five hits and two lineouts. Opponents hit .091 when Vazquez was 0-2 last year and .146 at 1-2. Joe Girardi, in fact, said, “The key at-bat of the game” was to open the sixth when Vazquez got up on Torii Hunter 0-2, just after the Yanks had closed to 2-1.
Vazquez, though, did not proceed confidently, nibbling to run the count full before Hunter clobbered a fastball for a double. Vazquez induced just two swings and misses on his fastball in 5 1/3 innings, one coming to strike out Hideki Matsui with Hunter on second. At that moment, Girardi could have ordered Kendry Morales walked to set-up a double play against righty-swinging Juan Rivera. And if Vazquez fell behind, Girardi would have done just that.
But again Vazquez got ahead, this time 1-2. But his fastball now in a vault, Vazquez simply showed Morales his changeup too much, his fourth in a row swatted for an RBI double. That knocked Vazquez out and instigated a new round of boos from a home crowd that has not forgotten or forgiven 2004 ALCS Game 7 and Johnny Damon’s grand slam.
Vazquez admitted being “a little disappointed” by the reception. But this crowd does not trust him and nothing in two starts (0-2, 9.82 ERA) has put skepticism on hiatus. Instead, he already has yielded four or more earned runs in six or fewer innings as many times as a 2010 Yankee as he did all year as a 2009 Brave.
And there is the absent fastball. He averaged 91 mph last year, but hit that as a high yesterday just three times, once after the first inning. That led to just four strikeouts, his fewest since September 2008. Of course, Vazquez said a better fastball and plenty of wins are coming — and history honors that theory.
However, he admitted to being 33 now, code that a heavy workload and age might have evaporated his best heat. And while the best fastball might be gone, the cynicism in The Bronx is real and something Vazquez is going to have to conquer as much as AL hitters.
joel.sherman@nypost.com