EIGHTEEN wins. Eighteen losses. Thirty-six games in the books. One-hundred and twenty-six to go. So, how are you enjoying the new digs, Skip?
“I think that our record could be better,” Joe Girardi said, smiling thinly, sitting behind his desk, encircled by his daily inquisition, talking about the Yankees’ 6-3 win over the Indians yesterday at Yankee Stadium and their 18-18 standing in the American League East. “But it could also be worse.”
Girardi seems genuinely unfazed by the Yankees’ early-season pattern of win-one, lose-one, win-three, lose-three, up and down, streaky and skiddy, all of that back and forth keeping them, for the most part, at sea level.
Maybe that’s because Girardi, for all the glories he sampled while in the employ of the Yankees, has worked elsewhere. In Chicago, in Denver, in Miami, there is such a thing as perspective. There is such a thing as the long season. There is such a thing as embracing the fact that April simply doesn’t mean the same as August, that May isn’t the equal of September.
Girardi’s players seem unfazed.
“We feel like we’re right there, that we’re just a little bit off,” said Johnny Damon, whose home run in the fourth inning broke a 17-inning scoring drought for the Yankees’ offense. “You don’t know that for sure until the performance backs you up, but that’s how we’re feeling right now.”
Maybe because there are still a lot of players in that room who remember 22-29 last year, who remember 43-43 at the All-Star break, some who still remember 11-19 a couple of years ago, some who read the newspapers every morning and notice that three-quarters of baseball seems to be lingering around the .500 mark, and that nobody has exactly run away and hidden like the ’84 Tigers.
Look, there is no guarantee the Yankees are significantly better than this. Maybe this turns out to be the year that a whole generation of Yankees fans discovers what third place looks like. Maybe the grand send-off everyone wants for Yankee Stadium will echo the one the Yankees delivered in 1973, when the old Stadium closed with a quiet loss to the Tigers closing out an 80-82 season.
Or maybe there are still grand things ahead.
Either way, it is far better to listen to the reassurance in the manager’s office, and in the clubhouse, than the hint of potential panic emanating from the owner’s suite. It is fine that Hank Steinbrenner has thought about David Wells; he sure isn’t alone, since when Yankees fans talk about ol’ Boomer they tend to sound like they’re pining for an old summer flame.
Wells, of course, represents the Old Way of doing things here, an Old Way best represented by the quiet passing of the one-year anniversary of Roger Clemens’ papal blessing. Wells probably still has some bullets left in his arm. And probably still has some Kit Kats and Reese’s Pieces left in his jeans, contraband that would never make it into the Bally’s Fitness spa that now doubles as the Yankees clubhouse.
No, things haven’t worked out strictly according to the blueprint. The kid pitchers were lit up. Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada got hurt. Three Yankees in yesterday’s batting order were sporting averages south of .200. The plot wandered off the script. It happens, to just about everyone. And the Yankees aren’t immune.
Yet they still sit at .500. All three of those struggling hitters – Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Wilson Betemit – homered yesterday, with Betemit actually pulling himself off the Interstate by game’s end. Mike Mussina gritted his way through five. Joba Chamberlain went 1-2-3 in the eighth, shook his first, angered some Indians. Mariano Rivera threw a scoreless ninth. Bobby Abreu was spooked by a couple of walls.
In other words: a whole lot of normal at the Stadium, with a whole lot of season left to be played. The manager understands. The players understand. Men with the surname of Steinbrenner haven’t always understood. Let’s hope this one does.