If the Yankees wanted to make Robinson Cano regret his offseason departure in his return to The Bronx, they didn’t do a good job.
Seattle’s new second baseman hardly carried the Mariners on his shoulders in a pair of victories over his former team, but his absence in the middle of the Yankee lineup was felt in a 4-2 defeat at The Stadium Thursday, just as it was in Tuesday’s loss.
“Are we bad?” Derek Jeter said with a smirk following the Yankees’ fifth straight game in which they scored four or fewer runs. “I’m pretty sure we’ll have some more games that are bad. That’s what’s going to happen over the course of the year. Unfortunately, offense is contagious, good and bad. You try and get out of it soon as you can.”
The Yankees were overmatched against Seatttle rookie left-hander Roenis Elias (2-2), who struck out 10 in seven innings and didn’t give up an earned run after Jacoby Ellsbury’s leadoff homer.
“When you face a new guy, you don’t know what you’re going to get from him,” Carlos Beltran said. “Basically, we couldn’t do [anything] against him.”
The stalled offense didn’t help Hiroki Kuroda, who fell to 2-3. Though Kuroda was certainly better than his previous outing, when he gave up eight runs in less than five innings, he still coughed up four runs in the first four innings.
“He didn’t pitch horribly,” Joe Girardi said, hardly a ringing endorsement. “I thought tonight was an improvement. A lot of nights, that’s good enough to win.”
This wasn’t one of them.
Kuroda was also hurt by a Jeter error in the fourth, which led to an unearned run.
But that wasn’t as damaging as the lack of run support, something he’s grown accustomed to as the Yankees’ bats stayed largely silent.
Ellsbury hit his first homer as a Yankee, a leadoff shot that tied the game at 1-1, after Kuroda surrendered a run on Cano’s RBI double to right, his first of two RBIs in the game.
In the sixth, Alfonso Soriano had a two-out single and Mark Teixeira grounded to Cano, who caught shortstop Brad Miller off guard by flipping to him for the attempted force. Miller wasn’t close enough to second base to make the play and Teixeira ended up beating Miller’s rushed throw to first.
Brian McCann made the Mariners pay for the mistake when his single to left drove in Soriano, cutting the deficit to 4-2, but Yangervis Solarte grounded to third to end the inning.
In the ninth, Fernando Rodney got Teixeira to pop to left, McCann to ground to first and, after an Ichiro Suzuki single, struck out Brett Gardner for the save.
As for Cano, who was booed loudly in his return to The Stadium Tuesday, the fans weren’t quite as hard on him Thursday.
He insisted he wasn’t bothered by the reaction.
“Both days felt good because both days we won, so it has to feel good,” Cano said. “There weren’t any expectations from the crowd today. I just wanted to go out and take care of business.”
The Yankees would like to do the same and they insist it’s too soon to get worried.
“I don’t make too much of it,” Girardi said. “It’s basically the first month of season. … I believe we’re going to get better as the year goes on.”
Beltran felt the same way.
“We know we’re going to hit; we’re going to play better,” Beltran said. “You’ve got to look at the numbers and figure it out yourself. … We’re fine. We’re going to be fine.”