MLB

Kuroda, Yankees embarrassed in rout by Angels

Injuries and controversy hardly seemed to slow down the Yankees while they were closing out their recent road trip, but an ugly game to start a nine-game homestand made that seem like a distant memory.

There was Hiroki Kuroda’s awful performance and a feeble showing by a lineup that was mostly overmatched against C.J. Wilson in a 13-1 loss to the Angels on Friday night.

“Overall, it was just a bad night,” Brett Gardner said.

Bad enough that perhaps the brightest spot was the fact a 28-year-old named Bruce Billings, despite allowing four runs and two homers in four innings, managed to save Joe Girardi from having to plow through a depleted bullpen.

With Ivan Nova out for the year and Michael Pineda serving his suspension for his pine-tar affinity, the Yankees were looking for considerably more than the 4 ²/₃ innings Kuroda gave them.

“He just didn’t seem to be really sharp,” Girardi said of Kuroda, who gave up eight runs, six earned, in his worst outing of the season. “His stuff seemed a little flat.”

While Kuroda managed to pitch around a pair of two-out singles in the first inning, his night unraveled in the second when he gave up three runs.

A two-run homer by Ian Stewart in the third made it 5-0 and a mammoth homer by Albert Pujols to start the fifth only made Kuroda’s night worse.

After watching Kuroda get pounded, Gardner spoke for all Yankees when he expressed confidence the right-hander would bounce back in his next outing.

“Hopefully, it’s a bump in the road and he’ll get back on track,” Gardner said.

But as with many of his teammates, there’s no guarantee Kuroda will regain the form that has made him so consistent throughout his major league career — a fact Kuroda himself conceded.

When asked if it was harder to make the necessary adjustments at this late stage of his career, Kuroda was honest.

“This is my first time experiencing 39 years old, so I don’t know,” Kuroda said through his interpreter. “But I have to make that adjustment, yes.”

When the Yankees brought Kuroda back in the offseason, they were hopeful he would fall into the form he had for the first two-thirds of 2013 — and not the disastrous last third.

Los Angeles Angels’ Erick Aybar, right, and Howie Kendrick celebrate after they defeated the New York Yankees 13-1.AP

His first four outings of this regular season ranged from solid to mediocre. Against the Angels on Friday, though, Kuroda had nothing and added he couldn’t command any of his pitches.

Billings had an outing to forget after getting called up earlier in the week from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The 28-year-old immediately surrendered a run-scoring double to Hank Conger and gave up homers to Erick Aybar and former Met Collin Cowgill.

Shawn Kelley, who hadn’t pitched since Sunday in Tampa Bay, wanted to get some work, so he came in to get the last out of the game.

And although Brian McCann has now filled in at first base in the latter stages of each of the last two games, Girardi insisted he isn’t considering him as a viable option at the position.

“You get a little nervous pulling your catcher and not having an extra catcher,” Girardi said.

When you’re down a dozen runs, though, it doesn’t matter all that much. But that’s the spot in which the Yankees found themselves, largely because of Kuroda’s ineffectiveness.

“I think he’ll find his stuff,” Girardi said. “He’s been a little up and down this year. Tonight, he couldn’t ever find it. There are those nights for pitchers. You don’t ever know when it’s coming, and you don’t want to see it.”