After a game where Dewayne Wise was the Yankees’ most effective pitcher and a week that saw two starting pitchers dropped by injury, Joe Girardi hoped, wished and sacrificed goats for one element yesterday.
“Distance,” the manager said. “Be nice to get six, seven innings.”
Hiroki Kuroda gave the Yankees those seven innings — seven brilliant, masterful shutout innings in which the righty changed locations, working sinkers, sliders and splitters to leave the White Sox cursing all day. Pitching in heat that matched the speed of his fastballs, Kuroda allowed just three hits, one walk and struck out a career-high-tying 11 before turning over matters to the bullpen to preserve the 4-0 victory in The Bronx.
“I’m not a strikeout pitcher. I’m not a power pitcher, so I’m kind of surprised,” Kuroda said, through an interpreter, of his 11 strikeouts, with just one that came looking. “My slider had really good movement and my sinker had really good movement, so I was able to use both sides.”
The Yankees, who completed a 20-victory June that has carried them to the top of the AL East, got distance from the plate as well, with three solo homers off White Sox complete-game loser Jake Peavy (6-5). Curtis Granderson launched No. 23 in the first inning, Wise continued a week to remember with his second homer in the fifth, and Robinson Cano, whose month has mirrored the Yankees’ success, blasted his 19th in the sixth. Wise also doubled home a run in the second.
“Peavy kept his pitch count down, he threw a lot of strikes,” Granderson said. “We were just able to put a couple balls in play hard to get them out of the ballpark.”
Kuroda did much of the rest with three relievers yielding only a walk in the last two innings.
The game, completed in a tidy 2:25, looked like it could go dreadfully wrong early for Kuroda (8-7). Alejandro De Aza singled to start the game but was erased trying to steal on a perfect Russell Martin-to-Cano hookup. After Kevin Youkilis fanned on a sinker, Adam Dunn walked and Paul Konerko singled to put runners on first and third. So Kuroda made Alex Rios the first of his seven slider strikeout victims.
“It was a big play, Russell threw out De Aza which probably saved a run,” Girardi said.
The Rios strikeout started a run of 15 straight batters set down by Kuroda — which ended when Youkilis was hit by a pitch in the sixth. The only other White Sox runner against Kuroda was Rios, who reached on a one-out single in the seventh. No matter. Kuroda fanned the final two batters. Swinging.
“In the first inning, I was trying to be too careful, too perfect with all my pitches because of the lineup they have,” Kuroda said.
But that changed — the same way Kuroda changed the perception that a free agent arriving in the AL East from the NL West would be ground into cat food, and Kuroda admitted the season started rough: 1-3, then 3-6.
“Early in the season, I was facing a lot of hitters I never faced before, so I was trying to be careful to hit the corners and I got behind in the count a lot,” Kuroda said.
Hence, being churned into mincemeat.
“So now I tried to be as aggressive as possible.”
Who can argue with the results?
“I really think it was the adjustment of coming over here,” Girardi said of Kuroda, who is 5-1 over his past seven starts. “When free agents come over here, they try too hard to validate themselves. He got beyond that after the first month and realized I just have to go out and pitch and do what I do.”
Hitting corners, sinking pitches, snapping sliders, hesitating in his deceptive delivery, unleashing breaking balls earlier — all the things Kuroda did yesterday to stop the Yankees’ two-game losing streak.
fred.kerber@nypost.com