CHICAGO — The 2013 Yankees, you probably remember, got the most of what they had.
The 2014 Yankees are similar, but not identical. They’re getting the most out of what they’ve done.
A marathon session at Wrigley Field on Wednesday, including four “farewell” at-bat salutes for Derek Jeter, concluded in the 13th inning when the Yankees prevailed over the Cubs, 4-2, salvaging a much-needed series split.
“Just a great effort by a lot of guys today,” an exhausted-looking Joe Girardi said. “Long day.”
A sweep at the hands of baseball’s worst team — even in a short, two-game series — would have been embarrassing. Should it have, though? Consider the Yankees, now 24-21, have scored 193 runs and allowed 204, an underwhelming run differential. The 16-28 Cubs? They have scored 174 and allowed 174. They are woefully underperforming their own mathematical expectations.
And if you wonder why that is, all you had to do was endure this contest, when Cubs ace — and likely Yankees trade target — Jeff Samardzija dominated the Yankees’ lineup for seven shutout innings, lowering his ERA to a major-league-leading 1.46, only to see his closer Hector Rondon blow a 2-0 lead in the ninth inning thanks in part to a throwing error by Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney. Samardzija has zero wins in 10 starts, which tells you all you need to know about the useless measure of pitchers’ wins.
These Yankees aren’t the scrappy bunch that we witnessed in their immediate predecessors, when a bunch of replacement-level players accompanied Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner (and late-season reinforcement Alfonso Soriano) on an unlikely ride to late-season contention.
The Steinbrenners spent nearly $300 million to re-energize their team’s offense, even while allowing Cano to go to the Mariners, and so far, that reboot hasn’t paid many dividends. The Yankees rank eighth in the American League in runs scored.
Most responsible for that mediocrity are the three highly compensated newcomers in the lineup. Carlos Beltran (.234/.286/.430) resides on the disabled list with a right elbow injury, Jacoby Ellsbury (.272/.346/.389) cooled down after a blazing start, and Brian McCann (.224/.274/.367) has just been awful. The Yankees’ three best offensive players have been the resurgent Mark Teixeira (.264/.372/.527), unheralded rookie Yangervis Solarte (.317/.394/.493) and blossoming pillar Brett Gardner (.304/.379/.424).
Ellsbury capitalized on the extra innings to deliver singles in the 10th and 12th innings, leaving him and his hitting coach Kevin Long hopeful the center fielder is breaking out of his extended slump. He went 1-for-27 before his late production.
“That’s all I needed, some extra innings to get it going,” Ellsbury said with a smile.
Long said he and Ellsbury worked on a mechanical issue before the game, in which Ellsbury was wrapping his bat behind his helmet, making him slow to the ball. Ellsbury seemed less certain of the correlation between that work and his results. Regardless, the Yankees badly need their $153 million man to start producing more.
Shoot, you could argue Wednesday’s offensive hero was reliever Preston Claiborne, who — in his first major league plate appearance — laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt in the top of the 13th to advance Solarte and Brendan Ryan to second and third with no outs. A wild pitch by former Yankee Jose Veras scored Ryan with the tiebreaker, then catcher John Ryan Murphy dropped a single into right field to bring home Solarte with an insurance run.
His last trip to the plate, Claiborne said, came seven years ago in the Cape Cod League. He never took batting practice this season and participated in one bunting drill during this past spring training. Claiborne notched the win with his 1 2/3 innings of solid relief in addition to his plate prowess, as the Yankees’ bullpen allowed one run over 8 2/3 innings after rookie Chase Whitley again kept the club in the game with a solid, 4 1/3-innings start.
It won’t get easier immediately for the Yankees, as they move to Chicago’s South Side. When they face the White Sox on Thursday night at US Cellular Field, they will have to face the club’s ace Chris Sale, who returns from the disabled list after missing a month with a left flexor strain.
The key for these Yankees is for their established, high-salaried, remaining healthy players — throw in Hiroki Kuroda along with Ellsbury and McCann, as they also rank eighth in the AL in runs allowed — to live up to their pedigrees. Because then they will make the most out of what they have. Which assuredly is more than they had last year.