This was the week the Yankees re-opened the playoff door for the Red Sox, fortified the confidence of the Rays and helped save Jerry Manuel’s job.
All because this was the week the Yankees raised so many worrisome questions about themselves.
The older players played old. The magic began to erode from pleasant surprises such as Brett Gardner and Francisco Cervelli. Mark Teixeira reverted to April form. In a bizarro turn around the rotation, only Javier Vazquez pitched well. Even Mariano Rivera was a sore spot in an unsteady bullpen.
In a New York-New York weekend, the Yanks got David Wright going on Saturday, Jason Bay going last night and left not only having lost two of three, but with the Mets closer to first place than the defending champions. If the Subway Series lasted one more day, Manuel was going to end up with a contract extension.
The Yanks have to ask now if this was a bad blip or somehow reflective of real problems. They are now six games out of first and the Red Sox — while still in fourth place — have won five of six since rallying Tuesday against the Yanks. They are finally pitching as expected, hitting well enough to devastate Roy Halladay yesterday and are within 2½ games of the Yanks.
So much for that two-team race in the AL East.
“It was a frustrating week for us,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “Going 2-5 (against the Red Sox, Rays and Mets) is not what we wanted.”
The Yanks had a chance to somewhat salvage the week last night as they scored three times in the ninth and sent Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the go-ahead run. But he was struck out by Francisco Rodriguez and the Mets held on to a 6-4 victory.
And, ultimately, that ninth could not fumigate the 26 Subway innings before that when the Yanks went 10-for-49 with men on base, 4-for-24 with runners in scoring position and had mustered all of six runs.
“This is a lot of frustration because we know we can do a lot more,” A-Rod said.
Last night the Yanks had the leadoff man on against Johan Santana in each of the first three innings and did not score, and then did not get another hit until Cervelli launched a ball off the left-field wall in the seventh. The Yanks protested it was a homer, but upon replay review it was shown to have not cleared the orange line in left.
Regardless, Cervelli with all of one home run in his muscle memory assumed too much, went into a trot and ended up with a single. That was unacceptable — or a pretty good summation of the week.
Derek Jeter perked up offensively with three hits last night, but that was somewhat negated by two grounders up the middle that he should have fielded and did not. His range to his left — a non-issue last year — is again problematic.
Gardner was installed in the two-hole, and was 0-for-13 against the Mets, and if you are wondering if the Yanks will miss Johnny Damon this season, that is a fair question.
Teixeira was 1-for-his-last-26 before an eighth-inning single, and Teixeira, A-Rod and Cano finished the Subway Series without an RBI.
“If you push the panic button every time you had a bad week in the season you’d probably push it more than once,” Girardi said. “We haven’t played particularly well. Obviously we want to get back to winning series after series and playing better.”
This is not about panic. This about Jorge Posada, Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson and Alfredo Aceves on the DL. This is about none of the big offseason moves (Vazquez, Granderson, Johnson, Chan Ho Park or Randy Winn) playing well. This is about the Core Four looking their age. This is about the No. 2 hole in the lineup becoming a sinkhole. This is about Jeter’s limited range and Girardi’s limited bullpen choices.
Maybe it is just a bad week. Or maybe the Subway was the latest revelation of a strong team going a bit off the rails.