ROUGH DAY: Andy Pettitte, who allowed three runs on five hits, gives a frustrated look on the mound in the sixth inning of the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays yesterday. (Reuters)
TORONTO — For whatever you want to say about these Yankees — for instance, you could say they played an absolutely dreadful ballgame yesterday — they could teach a college course on their ability to quickly turn the page this past month.
And now the course is approaching final exams, thanks to the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre that, combined with the Orioles’ 4-3 victory over the Red Sox last night at Camden Yards, tied them with Baltimore atop the American League East.
“We’ll bounce back,” manager Joe Girardi said after the Yankees’ fourth defeat in seven games. “We always have. We’ll bounce back.”
Girardi’s group has played 23 games without accruing a multiple-game losing streak, going 15-8 in that span; their last such funk occurred Sept. 2-4 against Baltimore (one loss) and Tampa Bay (two). Some of their eight most recent losses have been ugly, like yesterday’s; others have appeared devastating; a few qualified for both categories. Each time, though, the Yankees have reported to work the subsequent day and tallied a win.
Earl Weaver gets credit (at least, he does on Google) for the line, “Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher,” and that turns the focus to Phil Hughes, who will start today for the Yankees.
Long ago, the Yankees envisioned Hughes getting such an assignment and running with it, living up to his projected ceiling as a frontline starting pitcher. We know by now that Hughes hasn’t been that guy and very well might not ever be that guy. Yet he has provided plenty of value to these 2012 Yankees, and he even has come through in a similar setting just this month, as Andy Pettitte reminded The Post.
“He’s been great for us,” Pettitte, who took the loss yesterday, said of Hughes. “I think it all started in Baltimore for us. That was a long time ago. We were kind of playing it up to be some kind of huge game at that time.”
He’s referring to Sept. 7 at Camden Yards. The Yankees dropped the series opener the previous night in particularly painful fashion; they erased a 6-1 deficit with a five-run eighth, only to see David Robertson get pummeled for two homer and three runs overall in the bottom of the inning. That tied the rivals in the AL East penthouse, and it looked as though the Yankees, having lost four of five at that juncture, were trending downward.
Hughes showed up the next night and shut down the magical Orioles for the first five innings. That gave the Yankees’ lineup time to get its bearings, and the offense delivered five runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth. It wound up as an 8-5 win and set in motion the pattern that has recurred for the rest of September.
“All these games, I don’t think there has more than a game or two separating us for a month,” Pettitte said, correctly. “It’s been a battle.
“[Hughes] is going to be fine. He’s going to go out and do what he does, and hopefully it ends up being a good outing for us. I don’t think he’s going to be intimidated or nervous about the situation. Hopefully he can make some quality pitches and give us a good start.”
Like his starting rotation mates Hiroki Kuroda and Ivan Nova, Hughes has set a regular-season career high for innings pitched with 186 2/3, though he totaled 192 in 2010 once you count the postseason. The Yankees have tried to manage that by cutting back on Hughes’ between-starts bullpen sessions. Earlier in the season, the right-hander threw between 35 and 40 pitches in the workouts. Now, he’s down to 20 to 25.
The Yankees’ offense, lousy (2-for-11, two sacrifice flies) yesterday with runners in scoring position, could use some early zeroes again by Hughes to get its act together. And the Blue Jays have been more than accommodating this weekend, exhibiting some of the worst baserunning (and only slightly better defense) you ever will see in Major League Baseball.
As Pettitte said, every game has seemed huge for a while now. Today comes the latest huge game, the newest huge test for Hughes and his teammates. The consequences for not turning the page quickly, for letting yesterday’s malaise seep into today’s performance, would be the hugest yet.