MLB

Banged-up Bombers just keep on rolling along

LOOK WHAT I GOT! Catcher Austin Romine, playing because starter Francisco Cervelli is on the DL and backup Chris Stewart has a sore left groin, makes an acrobatic catch for the final out of the Yankees’ 5-0 win over the Blue Jays last night. (Neil Miller)

Someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. These 2013 Yankees have put a twist on that:

They’re doing the same thing over and over, and the rest of us are expecting different results.

Yes, the Yankees, who keep dropping bodies onto their giant pile of casualties, are challenging our collective baseball sanity. Now it’s Andy Pettitte on the 15-day disabled list with a strained trapezius muscle, plus Chris Stewart dropped to backup catching responsibilities due to a left groin injury. And, predictably, the Yankees responded to those latest developments with a 5-0 trouncing of a laid-back-looking Blue Jays club at Yankee Stadium.

“I think I take the approach ‘It is what it is,’ and we’ll find a way to get through the day,” manager Joe Girardi said at the day’s outset.

They got through the day, ensuring they would maintain sole possession of the American League East penthouse, thanks largely to another stud-like performance from their second ace, Hiroki Kuroda, who threw eight shutout innings. Fielding a typically unimposing lineup that featured Jayson Nix hitting second and Ben Francisco hitting fifth, the Yankees cobbled together enough runs off Toronto veteran starter Mark Buehrle.

Rookie catcher Austin Romine, who will get significant playing time with Stewart down and Francisco Cervelli (fractured right hand) out, delivered a single and double. Nix recorded two walks and two sacrifice flies, a rather productive 0-for-0 in his four plate appearances. Rookie David Adams singled, doubled and scored two runs.

“We’re just excited,” Romine said of himself and his fellow contributing youngsters. “We’re excited to get a chance, excited to be here, excited to contribute.”

Every day in Yankees land becomes a survival exercise. Before the game, infielder Alberto Gonzalez, whom the Yankees reacquired from the Cubs just last week, worked out as a catcher with bench coach/catching instructor Tony Pena — just in case Romine went down and Stewart’s groin acted up.

Left-hander Vidal Nuno, who picked up his first major league victory on Monday when he defeated the Indians in a doubleheader start, got the call back up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre upon the news of Pettitte’s deactivation. He’ll replace Pettitte in the starting rotation.

A poster in the Yankees’ clubhouse, notifying all players of a mandatory photo appearance today with season-ticket holders, featured all of the players named with their assigned times. Then there were 11 names crossed out, for the guys who are rehabilitating at the team’s minor league complex in Tampa.

General manager Brian Cashman, when asked how Eduardo Nunez (left oblique strain) was faring in his rehab, shrugged and said, “I’ve got so many guys.”

The rest of the baseball world marvels at the Yankees.

“I don’t think anybody knows how they’re doing it,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “You tip your hat to Joe and the coaches and the players.

“What they’re doing, I think a lot of people were writing them off before even some of those injuries came along. But you know what? The Yankees always play good baseball. They expect to win, they usually win. That’ll carry a long way.”

How long, though? Pettitte became the Yankees’ 13th DL designation of this young season, and he’ll be the first starting pitcher to miss any real time. Phil Hughes began the year on the DL, but started the fifth game on the schedule. Oh, and Mariano Rivera has to blow a save opportunity one of these days, too, doesn’t he?

“You just continue to move on, no matter what the circumstances are,” Girardi said. “I saw that in my mom, who was a cancer patient. I saw that in my dad, too. So I think that’s helped me a lot.”

It’s not helping the rest of us believe this can possibly continue. Doesn’t logic have to kick in at some point? Or will the Yankees simply continue a successful campaign that will go down as the least likely — the least sane — in modern memory?