HAF-ING TROUBLE: Travis Hafner kneels by second base after being thrown out by Nate McLouth while trying to stretch his single into a double during the third inning of the Yankees’ 4-2 loss last night. (
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BALTIMORE — If you believe Joe Girardi is the reason the Yankees are in a free fall that is threatening to flush the season before the All-Star break, have at it.
He is the manager of the team, so Girardi gets blamed. It’s part of the gig and why he gets paid regardless of how many stars are on the disabled list.
Yet, consider Girardi’s options last night in the ninth inning against the Orioles at Camden Yards.
Down two runs with runners on first and second and one out against Jim Johnson, Girardi had two choices to use as a pinch-hitter for an over-matched David Adams: Alberto Gonzalez and Austin Romine.
As bad as Adams is going, he had a better shot at running into one of Johnson’s high-octane fastballs. Of course, he didn’t. And when Brett Gardner grounded out to end it, the Yankees packed a 4-2 loss into their luggage headed for Minneapolis.
“You know what you have and you deal with it,’’ Girardi said of having to manage with a thin bench.
Witnessed by a crowd of 40,878, the defeat stretched the Yankees’ losing streak to five and dropped them into fourth place, a season-high 6 1/2 lengths behind the AL East-leading Red Sox.
Hiroki Kuroda, who gave up solo homers to Manny Machado in the first, Chris Davis in the second and Nate McLouth in the third, was the latest Yankees starter to be sabotaged by a lineup that has scored 13 runs during the five-game slide.
“I didn’t pitch particularly well, and they took advantage of my mistakes,’’ said Kuroda, who gave up four runs and seven hits in six-plus innings and is 7-6 with a 2.95 ERA.
While the Orioles used the long ball for three runs in the opening three frames, the Yankees scratched a second-inning run out of two singles and two walks against Chris Tillman. Their second run was delivered by Robinson Cano’s 17th homer in the sixth inning.
“We didn’t have a lot of chances,’’ Girardi said of his lineup, which went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and has three hits in the last 22 at-bats in the clutch.
Girardi refuses to give into the belief that a team that has lost 13 of 18 is circling the drain.
“This is like life, you have to find a way to get through it,’’ Girardi said. “I know the effort is there. These are the guys we have.’’
Essentially, the same cast got the Yankees to 30-18 on May 25, and Girardi is leading the voices who think they can repeat that. However, players such as Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay, Travis Hafner and Jayson Nix have been asked to play far too regularly and their production has suffered.
“You look back to what we were able to accomplish early in the season, and there’s no reason we can’t get back to doing that,’’ said Wells, who fanned while hitting for Hafner in the eighth and thus was not available to Girardi in the ninth.
Wells has to believe the cards are going to turn at some point because there is no other choice but walk away.
“Then we all might as well go home. We don’t lose doubt. We don’t doubt ourselves. We don’t lose faith in what we can do,’’ Wells said.
Catcher Chris Stewart summed up the situation this way: “At the beginning of the year, it wasn’t like we were hitting home runs to win ballgames. We were just getting those big hits that we’re not getting now. That’s the biggest difference between then and now.’’
So, too, is the win-loss record and where they reside in the standings.