The ball was barely off Brian McCann’s bat, but he knew.
One more ball hit into the mouth of a shift, and into the glove of Tampa second baseman Logan Forsythe, who seemed to be positioned a step or two away from the Grand Concourse.
One more game ending quietly, most of the 42,343 paying customers long gone to the Deegan or the 4 train.
One more homestand over, the Yankees looking as uncomfortable at their home address as if the Stadium were datelined Amityville.
“This team never quits,” manager Joe Girardi would say softly a few minutes later, this 6-3 loss to the Rays ending a three-game sweep, a 2-7 homestand, and a 6-9 stretch of 15 games in which they played all four opponents in the AL East and lost series to all of them. “That won’t be a problem, I don’t see a problem.”
And then, in case anyone missed the point: “We didn’t quit today.”
And it’s funny — by insisting his team hasn’t given up the ghost, either Wednesday or for the rest of the season, you had to wonder: Whom, exactly, is Girardi trying to convince?
Quitting isn’t an issue, or at least it wasn’t until Girardi himself thought to bring it up. Nobody is worried about the Yankees quitting.
At issue is the Yankees’ playing. Well. Smart. Skillfully. Even competently. They are 41-42, 4 ½ games out of first place in the East now.
When Girardi and others seek comfort over these facts and figures, they lose themselves in the warm embrace of circumstance — the East is such a clutter that even the Rays, left for dead a week ago, are within 9 ½ games with three months to go.
And also history. The last two times the Yankees were under .500 this deep in a season was 2007 (when they were still 42-43 on July 7) and 1995, when they didn’t reach .500 for good in that strike-shortened campaign until Sept. 6 (61-61). They made the playoffs both times, although it took a 26-7 push to close out the season in ’95, and a 51-25 second half 12 years later.
Do the Yankees have a 26-7 stretch in them this year?
“I still believe in this team because there’s talent in the room,” Girardi said. “But you can look at almost every phase of the game and say we have to be better.”
Said Derek Jeter: “Talent doesn’t win games. You have to find ways to win games.”
That’s the issue. That’s the concern. Quitting? To even hint that anyone would think the Yankees are already phoning it in is silly, practically absurd. But it says something about the expectations the Yankees have for themselves, and the inherent stubbornness that sets in when those standards aren’t met.
We aren’t winning?
Well then: What’s wrong around here?
It isn’t a lack of effort, or trying, or caring, or passion.
You take a walk around the Yankees clubhouse these days, it’s crawling with under-performing ballplayers whose pained expressions tell you they know perfectly well they aren’t mimicking the backs of their baseball cards, from Brian McCann to Brian Roberts, Carlos Beltran to Alfonso Soriano, Mark Teixeira to Kelly Johnson.
“It’s frustrating,” said Brett Gardner, one of the few Yankees actually overachieving, and arguably their first-half offensive MVP. “But you have to believe better times are ahead. We’ll fight through this.”
Left unsaid was this: “Because we always do.” And that was always the Yankees’ mantra, for most of the years going back to 1994, because they always did, because there was enough muscle memory in the room that you figured it was bound to kick in sooner rather than later.
But the beaten-up Yankees of 2013 never did make that charge.
And of the core players who took over for the dynasty boys starting in 2009, three-quarters of the Core Fore is gone, Jeter is going, Alex Rodriguez, Nick Swisher and Robinson Cano are in their own personal exiles, Curtis Granderson is across town. The uniforms remain the same. But these are very different Yankees.
Does that mean they’re done? Not on July 3 it doesn’t. There is time. There is opportunity. But working harder won’t get that done. Wanting it more won’t, either.
They have to play better, which sounds easy enough.
But if a team simply isn’t good enough to play better, it’s the hardest assignment in the world.