September. Baseball’s best month, arguably. Crunch time.
The Yankees will require an awesome September to live to see October, and they have a roster full of players who historically love September.
Unfortunately for them, those same players haven’t loved 2014.
“When I was younger, I always felt like I stayed strong during the long season,” Mark Teixeira said Sunday, before the Yankees closed their August with a disheartening, 4-3 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. “I worked really hard in the offseason. I just felt like everyone else was wearing down and I stayed strong.
“But the last few years have probably been a little different. I didn’t play very much in 2012 and I didn’t play at all last year. I’m actually interested to see how I feel this year.”
First, let’s take a step back toward the bigger picture. After going 15-13 in August with a dramatically retooled roster, the Yankees will take a 70-65 record into Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, when they kick off a crucial, nine-game homestand starting with the Red Sox. Their best month of the season was April, when they posted a 15-11 mark, a .577 winning percentage.
In the Aug. 13 edition of The Post, as every single one of you surely recalls, I wrote that the Yankees would need to win 89 games to qualify for the playoffs. That would require them to go 19-8, a .703 winning percentage, this month. The current leader for the second American League wild card, Detroit, is on pace to win 89 games, so 89 still looks like a decent projection.
While multiple avenues exist for the Yankees to pull off this long-shot bid, the most logical calls for a rebirth of their slumping, established hitters. David Robertson told The Post’s George King he felt these Yankees were better equipped than their 2013 predecessors to make a run, and he’s right, if you just look at the names involved. You’d rather have Teixeira, Derek Jeter and Stephen Drew in your starting lineup than Lyle Overbay, Mark Reynolds and Brendan Ryan.
Teixeira, Jeter and Drew intrigue particularly for this reason: September (and regular-season October) ranks as the best month of each man’s career. And each man just completed an August that can be described only as rank.
On Sunday, Teixeira went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts to tie the bow on a .193/.276/.307 August. Earlier this season, he at least displayed some pop when healthy. And as he pointed out himself, his career September numbers of .293/.379/.562 were compiled what feels like a lifetime ago.
Asked if he thought he had a September surge in him, Teixeira said, “I hope so. I hope so.”
Jeter actually was enjoying an acceptable, if diminished, retirement campaign before everything fell apart in August. He went .207/.226/.261, stirring up more discussion about whether Joe Girardi should finally drop Jeter in the Yankees’ lineup. Girardi indicated to me during this just-completed road trip that he wouldn’t be doing that.
If you’re looking for half-full glasses, Jeter tallied an acceptable .289/.340/.320 slash line in July, and he’s just one month removed from that. He’s .320/.397/.449 lifetime in September. And he actually began lifting the ball a little more on the road.
“I feel all right,” Jeter said after Sunday’s game. “I had a couple [good at-bats] today, pretty good. You’d like to hit line drives every time up, but unfortunately, pitchers have the opposite view. That’s how this game is. There’s ups and downs.
“I feel good. The results will be there.”
Drew, an impending free agent, joined the Yankees July 31 as a potential successor to Jeter. As a Yankee, switching between second base and shortstop, he owns a .153/.225/.306 line. For his career, he’s .283/.345/.477 in September.
“The more at-bats I get every year, it’s always my second half is really strong. I don’t know,” Drew said. “That’s just the way it goes.”
His previous two seasons were disrupted dramatically — by a right ankle injury in 2012 and by a concussion in 2013. He started 2014 late because of the draft compensation attached to his free agency. He closed ’12 (.263/.331/.421) and ’13 (.277/.341/.518) strong. “Hopefully, this September will be good,” he said.
Let’s skip the part about how Brian McCann (.252/.326/.401) and Martin Prado (.275/.321/.379) are at their worst this time of year. Well, except to note that if McCann matched his career September, his 2014 numbers would increase.
Yup, the Yankees need plenty to go right, starting now.