Life presents us with warnings to ignore and warnings to heed. Storm clouds that will soon dissipate and icebergs that won’t be bypassed.
In which column would you put this Yankees season so far?
With their second straight loss to open 2013, 7-4 to the Red Sox at a chilly Yankee Stadium, the Yankees looked about as inept as their most pessimistic observers envisioned. And this one can’t be shrugged aside, not with Hiroki Kuroda — arguably their best pitcher of 2012 — exiting in the second inning with a bruised right middle finger.
“You never want to lose games. Obviously they’re going to come,” said Vernon Wells, who hit his first home run as a Yankee. “But we haven’t played good enough baseball to win. That’s the bottom line. We haven’t clicked in all three phases of the game. It’s just a matter of time before we do, but it would be nice for it to happen sooner than later.”
Wells’ three-run, eighth-inning blast gave the Yankees some much-appreciated makeup on what was otherwise a worthless and cold evening, as the Stadium was so empty by the seventh-inning stretch that you could’ve mistaken it for a Marlins game. That Kuroda’s X-rays and CT scan came back negative offered the team more hope that this, too, shall pass.
Deep breaths, everyone. Read and repeat: It’s two games. Two games. The 2012 Yankees lost their first three games and proceeded to win 95. The 1998 Yankees lost their first three games and broke the old American League record, winning 114. Two games is a tiny, tiny sample.
Yet if you’re inclined to worry, these Yankees provide you with ample reason.
Start with the injury bug striking Kuroda, who led the Yankees last year with 2192/3 regular-season innings and threw well in two playoff games, shooing away the “Can’t switch from National League West to American League East” questions and earning himself a $15 million contract for this year. He didn’t look good from the outset anyway, giving up a run in the first inning, and that short-term headache blew up once Shane Victorino’s line drive up the middle tipped Kuroda’s finger and sailed into center field.
“It still got out to me pretty quickly. I knew it was hit hard,” Brett Gardner said. “I thought I heard it hit something, and I knew he put his bare hand up.
“It was a good sign that he was able to stand there and throw a few more pitches. If he had come out immediately, I would’ve been much more concerned. But he’s obviously very important to what we have going on. So hopefully he’ll be back soon.”
He did look terrible facing four more batters after the injury, hitting two and walking one before getting the hook from Joe Girardi and head trainer Steve Donohue. Kuroda, through his interpreter, expressed hope he could make his next start Monday night in Cleveland
Meanwhile, against Red Sox starting pitcher Clay Buchholz, not a creature stirred in the Yankees’ diminished lineup. Travis Hafner slugged his first Yankees homer and the team’s first of the season in the fourth inning, a solo shot to right field that closed the home team’s deficit to 6-1. Hafner wound up the only Yankee to reach third base through Buchholz’s seven innings.
“He didn’t have a high pitch count. Just getting ahead and working in and out,” Gardner said. “Typical Buchholz, really.”
One-hundred sixty games to go, and, by golly, the Yankees won’t lose all of them. What can bother you at this ridiculously early juncture is not so much the result as the process. The continued bad injury luck, the lack of offensive pep. The curiosity whether any of the many newcomers without a strong recent track record — Wells, Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, Ben Francisco and Brennan Bosch — can play over his head for an extended period as have Eric Chavez, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia and Raul Ibanez in recent past campaigns.
“It’s not unusual to lose two games in a row,” Girardi said. “It’s somewhat glaring that it’s the first two games of the year.”
Passing storm or iceberg? The Yankees will forge ahead, because that’s their job. You would be a fool to write off this team based on two games. Nevertheless, that iceberg looks a little bigger this time around.
kdavidoff@nypost.com