DETROIT — Shawn Kelley’s glove landed on the Comerica Park infield grass before Alex Avila’s hit collided with the right-field wall and sent the Yankees to a killer loss Thursday.
From the moment a ninth-inning slider that stayed up too long and caught too much of the plate left the right-handed reliever’s hand, he knew the Yankees were doomed.
“That is as bad as I have felt coming off the mound in my career, not good,’’ Kelley said in the wake of a 3-2 defeat to the Tigers that was witnessed by a sold-out crowd of 42,647. “I was giving it all I had. I wanted it bad for us. That was a huge game, that one hurts. I got two big outs and I wanted to extend the game.’’
Because Dellin Betances worked an inning Wednesday night, manager Joe Girardi limited the strikeout artist to one frame Thursday and he whiffed two of the four batters he faced in a scoreless eighth. Abiding by the doctrine that preaches never use the closer in a tie game on the road, Girardi ignored David Robertson and called for Kelley to start the ninth with the score tied, 2-2.
Victor Martinez greeted him with a double and J.D. Martinez walked. Kelley rebounded to strike out Nick Castellanos looking and pinch-hitter Torii Hunter on a check swing. One out away from sending the game into extra innings, Kelley watched in horror as right fielder Ichiro Suzuki couldn’t catch up with the left-handed hitting Avila’s drive that easily scored pinch-runner Bryan Holaday from second.
“I assumed it was a home run, it was a bad pitch, he barreled it and the game was over,’’ said Kelley, who fired his glove to the ground in frustration. “It would have been a nice surprise but I assumed it was a home run. Right out of my hand it was too much middle.’’ 
Having watched the wind blowing from left to right carry Brian McCann’s bid for a three-run homer in the ninth into foul territory, the Yankees were hoping the breeze would keep Avila’s ball in the park.
“When he first hit it I thought it was a home run,” Derek Jeter said. “The wind had been knocking down a lot of balls and [Ichiro] almost got there. He went a long way for that, it would have been an unbelievable catch.”
Because of a dark shadow on the right-field warning track, television replays never gave a true picture of whether or not Ichiro could have caught the ball.
“It went right over my head and the ball hit the fence,’’ said Ichiro, who entered the game in the eighth as a pinch hitter for Zealous Wheeler. “Obviously it’s a do-or-die play. I went to where I thought the ball was going to be.’’
One game after stringing together nine straight hits and scoring eight runs off David Price before making an out in Wednesday’s third inning, the Yankees managed two runs (one earned) and four hits off Kyle Lobstein, a 25-year-old lefty who made his first big league start and appeared in just his second game. After the six-inning stint on Thursday Lobstein was sent back to the minors.
“The game I saw we swung the bats better than [Wednesday],’’ Girardi said. “We hit balls at people.’’
So, with 30 games remaining the Yankees open a three-game series against the just-about-dead Blue Jays in Toronto Friday night still not giving in to the belief the AL East is out of reach, though the math delivers a different message.
“It’s in our hands, we need to win,’’ Jeter said. “Until something else happens [winning the division] is the goal.’’