Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff

MLB

Girardi & Co.’s only saving grace: American League East

TORONTO — The good news for the Yankees is that the American League East shockingly has devolved into a group game of “How low can you go?”

The bad news is the Yankees are proving to be awfully good at that game.

They entered Rogers Centre on Monday seemingly holding the upper hand, and they departed with their collective tail between their legs. Chase Whitley finally clocked a poor outing for his first major league loss, the lineup continued to perform as if it had to pay for each run scored and the Yankees (39-36) got housed by the Blue Jays, 8-3, to suffer their third straight loss and fall 2 ½ games behind division-leading Toronto (43-35).

Throw in the Orioles’ walk-off, 6-4 victory over the White Sox in Baltimore, and the Yankees now find themselves in third place, a game behind the O’s (40-35).

“The one thing we have to do, we have to become more consistent,” a placid-looking Joe Girardi said after the game. “The guys are working hard. I have no problem with their effort. … It’ll turn.”

We’re almost at the halfway point of not turning. Yet no one in the AL East has turned. For as lousy as the Yankees looked at home against Baltimore during their Old-Timers’ weekend, the Blue Jays returned home having lost 11 of their previous 15 games. And in their 4-3 loss at Cincinnati on Sunday, the Jays lost a pair of everyday players to injury. Slugging right fielder Jose Bautista (strained left hamstring) will miss at least a couple of days, while infielder Brett Lawrie (fractured right index finger) went on the disabled list and will sit out three to six weeks.

How many more signs from the baseball gods do the Yankees need to realize they can capture their division despite their obvious liabilities? Better question, maybe: Do they have the horses to execute such a realization?

The Blue Jays rebounded Monday behind a lineup that enjoyed the benefit of seeing Whitley for the second time in six days and a far improved showing from starting pitcher and Medford native Marcus Stroman, whom the Yankees knocked around last week in The Bronx. Nevertheless, the Jays stand as the most underwhelming division leader in the AL, if not all of baseball. The two teams most anticipated to top the division, Boston (35-41 entering Monday night’s game in Seattle) and Tampa Bay (31-46), possess strongholds on fourth and fifth place, respectively.

In short, while many of the Yankees’ worst fears about their own weaknesses have turned into reality — think Derek Jeter’s and Carlos Beltran’s age, Brian McCann’s transition struggle, CC Sabathia’s mileage fatigue and Michael Pineda’s brittleness — almost none of their fears about their opponents’ strengths have come to fruition.

That’s why Girardi could sit in the visitors’ dugout late Monday afternoon and continue to spin a positive portrait of his club.

“We’ve had to deal with some things this year, too. I think our guys have done a pretty good job,” the Yankees’ manager said. “We’re asking a lot of guys to fill in roles that maybe they weren’t expected to. Giving us a chance to win every night, I think the guys have done a pretty good job.

“When you think about it, you lose 60 percent of your rotation [with Ivan Nova going down in addition to Sabathia and Pineda], that’s not easy to replace. We’re right there in the middle of it. We’re in a pretty good situation, in a sense.”

Absolutely, although in another sense, given how much money they committed last winter to upgrade their club, they must be kicking themselves knowing they could own this division right now had players like Beltran, Ellsbury, Jeter and McCann lived up to their pedigrees.

The Rays look dead; a trade of ace David Price appears inevitable. The Red Sox’s conservative approach last winter hasn’t paid dividends, and while the best bet calls for them to honor their status as defending World Series champions and not go into sell mode, they have a very high mountain to climb. And at the moment, they’re getting suboptimal performances from their entire outfield and their starting rotation aside from Jon Lester and John Lackey.

The Orioles aren’t going away, yet they might lack the pitching to run away completely from the opposition.

The Blue Jays?

“We’re just getting started,” Gibbons said, smiling. “We’re overdue.”

Not sure about that one. Definitely sure on this, though: The Yankees haven’t experienced this sort of good fortune via other teams’ bad fortune in quite a while. Can they ensure that doesn’t go to waste?