TORONTO — As Adam Lind pulverized a Joba Chamberlain slider Thursday night, sending it deep into the right-field stands and burying the chance of another come-from-behind Yankees victory, the ugly truth emerged:
These Yankees have been too terrible, too often. They have virtually no chance to qualify for the playoffs, and no right to do so, either, even in baseball’s watered-down format.
Another must-win game turned into a tepid, 6-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, and at 80-73, the Yankees are gasping for their final breaths. They head home Friday coming off a roller-coaster, 4-6 road trip through three cities that likely will be remembered as season-killing.
“We played pretty well in Baltimore. We didn’t score runs in Boston and didn’t pitch too well. And we didn’t score runs here,” a tense Joe Girardi said after the game. “You put those two things together, and it leads to a lot of losses.”
Thanks to this loss, the Yankees failed to gain ground against the Rays (83-69), the one important club remaining on their schedule, who lost to Texas (83-69) at Tropicana Field. They also fell further behind Cleveland (83-70), who beat Houston, and failed to pick up the trail on Baltimore (81-71), who lost to Boston.
Oh, and with the Royals (80-72) off Thursday, the Yankees now stand in sixth place in the six-team race for the two wild-card spots. Or, if you prefer, fifth place for the five-team race for the second wild card.
“We’re still in the mix,” Alex Rodriguez said. “Somebody wants us in, that’s for sure, because we keep getting help from other people. At some point, we have to do it ourselves.”
It’s almost certainly too late. Until Girardi made the highly questionable decision to call upon Chamberlain to keep the Yankees’ deficit at 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh, you thought that maybe the Yankees could pull off another late-night theft as they did in Wednesday’s 4-3 thriller. The problem is, it’s hard to keep winning games in that fashion.
When Chamberlain spit the bit, the hope evaporated. A bases-loaded, one-out rally in the ninth proved mere window dressing.
Girardi defended his choice of Chamberlain, both in starting the seventh and then staying in the game against Lind, who entered the at-bat with eight hits in 18 at-bats against the fallen prodigy. Shawn Kelley has been shaky since returning from his injury hiatus, David Phelps is just back off the disabled list, and Girardi wanted to save Adam Warren for the eighth. And Chamberlain had thrown two shutout innings in two appearances against the Red Sox. Lefty Cesar Cabral is an inexperienced rookie.
“Where do you want me to go?” Girardi asked reporters.
It’s easier said than done, but anywhere besides Chamberlain, once he walked Munenori Kawasaki and gave up a seeing-eye single to Brett Lawrie. Not given how bad Chamberlain, now the owner of a 4.97 ERA, has looked for the duration of this season.
The Yankees now have lost five of six and are 8-10 in September. Their last seven wins have come by a total of nine runs. If you want to interpret that as a sign of scrappiness and toughness, go to town. To the objective observer, it means they’re a mediocre team holding on for dear life.
That life has slipped away, methodically. The season-ending left oblique strain to leadoff man and center fielder Brett Gardner has proven near fatal. A-Rod seems out of fuel (feel free to insert your own joke here), again. That Hiroki Kuroda gutted out six innings Thursday, allowing just three runs while giving up eight hits and walking four, was impressive, yet the dominance he exhibited earlier this season is long gone.
For the season, the Yankees have been outscored, 645-625. The ability to dramatically outperform their expected record reflects well upon Girardi and the players. That statistical accomplishment won’t and shouldn’t appease their fan base, which is asked to contribute its significant share to the club’s $230 million-ish payroll.
That payroll is headed south, you might have heard, and this franchise’s short-term future is underwhelming, with A-Rod’s appeal hearing and Robinson Cano’s free agency the most exciting news on the horizon. We’ll be tackling those subjects soon enough.
For the moment? We’ll see if the Yankees can delay the inevitable. Stop being terrible and push back their elimination through their six-game homestand.
“We have no choice. There’s no time to reflect,” A-Rod said. “There’s time to win games. It’s a good time to start tomorrow.”
An even better time would have been long ago, but you can expect only so many miracles from a mediocre ballclub.