Managers constantly are walking the tightrope in the postseason between going with what worked during the 162-game schedule and having to react to how fast winter can come if you stick too long with what is not working.
A slump that can be tolerated in May or June with the big picture in mind is a lot less acceptable now. An 0-for-12 dissolves rather seamlessly into 600 plate appearances, but, in October, sticks out like Steve Phillips at a sorority house.
The manager is weighing loyalty to a player who helped the team reach the postseason vs. what might be good this second, this at-bat, this pitch. Is the best option to believe today is the day a player will stir from his doldrums? Or is today the day to make the tough choice to go another way? You can have regrets either way, of course.
Only in October, you also will have an entire nation wondering if you have gone Stump Merrill on your team if you stick with what is not working.
This is where manager Joe Girardi is with Nick Swisher.
Swisher had an RBI double in his second at-bat of ALDS Game 1, and has neither an RBI nor an extra-base hit since. He has three hits in 29 at-bats overall in the postseason, and is hitless in eight at-bats with runners in scoring position.
He flat-lined in the Angels’ 7-6 Game 5 triumph in going 0-for-5. He made the first and last out of a seventh inning in which the Yankees otherwise scored six runs to take a brief 6-4 lead. And after the Yankees loaded the bases against erratic closer Brian Fuentes with two outs in the ninth and down a run, Swisher — to his credit — went from down 0-2 in the count to full. He knew a fastball was coming in that situation because Fuentes could not risk walking in the tying run. Yet all Swisher could muster was a pop out to short.
“My postseason has not gone how I wanted it to, so I really wanted to come through there and I didn’t,” Swisher said.
But what to do? When Joe Torre made himself sick by having to bench one of his leaders, the slumping Tino Martinez during the 1996 World Series, he could turn to the accomplished Cecil Fielder to play first base.
The Yankees did not put Eric Hinske on the ALCS roster and, even if they had, Girardi would be hesitant to start Hinske against left-hander Joe Saunders in Game 6. The same is true for putting Brett Gardner in center to start and shifting Cabrera to right in place of Swisher.
Swisher actually went 1-for-2 with a walk against Saunders in Game 2. But does Girardi put meaning into that or does he feel it necessary to rescue a player who is sinking right now? Swisher insisted his confidence is fine, that he would love to have another opportunity like the one at the end of Game 5.
But what else is he supposed to say? That he is petrified? What might be more revealing is that Swisher, unprompted, brought up the woefulness of his postseason in explaining why he so badly wanted to get a hit in the ninth inning.
Swisher might now be taking all the bad at-bats of October to the plate with him. And that is no way to be helpful in trying to finish off the feisty Angels. Saunders is tough. He is a heck of a lot tougher if Swisher is carrying his failures against John Lackey and Fuentes and Jered Weaver to the plate, too.
Swisher is the type who over the course of the long season has a lot of ugly at-bats, a ton of awkward swings and misses. But over the long season, Girardi stuck with him and was rewarded with 29 homers and a .397 on-base percentage. That is when patience is possible.
The season is shorter now, and patience must be, as well. So does Girardi continue to trust and hope with Swisher? Or does he shun loyalty?
joel.sherman@nypost.com