Imagine if Ivan Nova hadn’t pitched well last night.
The 25-year-old right-hander, who never has been accused of a lack of bravado, was either delusional or in denial insisting that he had good command and good stuff despite all evidence and manager Joe Girardi’s testimony to the contrary on a night the Yankees were pounded by the Orioles 11-5 at the Stadium.
“He had no fastball command and he was inconsistent with his slider and his curveball,” Girardi said after Nova yielded nine runs on 10 hits in five innings, including seven runs in the second — all scoring with two outs after the Yankees had put up a five-spot in their first at-bat.
The manager responded tightly when it was suggested to him that Nova appeared to lose focus during the second-inning torrent in which he surrendered five straight hits, including a grand slam by Chris Davis to left-center.
“Then he better get it back quickly if he lost it,” said Girardi, whose team has lost four straight and nine of its last 12. “He can’t lose focus. He’s a major league pitcher.
“If you make a bad pitch, you have to get it back.”
Nova, whose pitches were all over the place, denied that he lost focus. He also said he thought he had a good slider.
“It was a bad day; bad luck,” said Nova, who has had more than a month’s worth of both, pitching to a 5.28 ERA while allowing 57 hits and 18 walks in 47 2/3 innings over his last eight starts. “I just have to turn the page and get a fresh start.
“I have to go forward.”
Nova has gone in the wrong direction following last year’s brilliant 16-4 rookie season in which he won his final 12 decisions while exuding poise and self-confidence that bordered on cockiness.
Indeed, after opening this season 3-0 with an April 20 victory at Fenway to stretch his winning streak to 15 games, Nova declared himself king of the hill.
“If you ask me who is the best pitcher in the world, I say, ‘Me,’ ” Nova said. “You know you have to believe it. That’s why you win so many games.”
Nova has won just one of his last eight starts, losing three with four no-decisions. The Yankees, meanwhile, have won three of their last 12 games, this one because of an implosion by their starting pitcher after dropping the previous eight primarily because of faulty work from the offense.
“Our struggles really haven’t been with our rotation,” Girardi said before the game. “I’ve been pretty pleased with it.”
The Yankees still have the biggest division lead in baseball, but the objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear, especially the one in Boston.
The second-place Orioles are 5 1/2 back while the fourth-place Red Sox are within 7 1/2 with more than enough time to make it all up.
Indeed, as far as Derek Jeter is concerned, pretty much an entire season remains to be played; far too much of it to take note of the standings.
“I don’t look at the scoreboard now and I don’t look at the standings now,” Jeter told The Post before the game. “It means absolutely zero.
“To me, it’s the same as April.”
If it’s about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, well, the Yankees certainly have done that this week in losing the last two of their three-game series against Boston before losing the first two of a three-game series against Baltimore.
Jeter, however, scoffed at the notion the Yankees lost an opportunity to bury the Red Sox and Orioles.
“How many games are left, 60?” Jeter, 3-for-5 and back to .312, asked rhetorically. “If they were 60 games behind, that’s the only way we could have buried them.
“You don’t bury teams in July.”
The Yankees didn’t, that’s for sure, and now they send Phil Hughes to the mound this afternoon as they attempt to avoid a Bronx sweep by the Orioles.
Hopefully he will not pitch as well as Nova did last night.
larry.brooks@nypost.com