GOOSE EGGS: Hiroki Kuroda allows just five singles during a 113-pitch, complete-game shutout of the Orioles last night in The Bronx. (
)
The Yankees still have plenty of games to play before they are whole again, before Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson take their places in the lineup.
But 11 games into the season, as the Yankees take a day off before interleague play, they have at least shrugged off their worrisome start.
A brilliant performance from Hiroki Kuroda and a three-run fifth inning sparked by some unlikely candidates helped give the Yankees their fifth win in six games, a 3-0 victory over the Orioles on another brisk night in The Bronx.
“These guys know how to win,” Vernon Wells said. “Even though this isn’t the team people are used to seeing, there are enough people on this team who still can figure out how to turn things around.”
Kuroda was the main reason the Yankees (6-5) got back over .500.
After a Shane Victorino line off his right middle finger forced him from his first start against the Red Sox in the second inning and a lack of command limited him to 5 1/3 innings in a win in Cleveland, Kuroda was at his best last night.
He pitched his fifth career complete-game shutout and first since last Aug. 14. Kuroda struck out five and didn’t walk a batter, while not allowing a runner to reach second base until the ninth.
“He was fun to watch,” said Brett Gardner, who produced the biggest hit of the night, a two-run blast off Baltimore starter Wei-Yin Chen in the fifth that hit high off the right-field foul pole.
The inning was set up by singles by Brennan Boesch and Francisco Cervelli, part of another lineup variation against the lefty Chen.
The hot-hitting Wells was moved up to second, with Robinson Cano back in the three-spot, right-handed Ben Francisco as the DH and another left-handed bat, Boesch, filling in for Ichiro Suzuki.
Boesch hustled to third on Lyle Overbay’s fly ball to right and scored on Jayson Nix’s sacrifice fly. Gardner followed with his second homer of the season.
“We need everyone to contribute,” manager Joe Girardi said. “And you look at what the bottom of the order did tonight, they were important in us scoring runs and then Brett got the big hit.”
Boesch, Cervelli, Overbay and Nix combined to go 5-for-10 with two runs. Even with a southpaw starting against them, the Yankees’ left-handed bats went 4-for-13.
Nobody was better than Kuroda, though, which didn’t come as a surprise to Wells.
“I didn’t like facing him,” Wells said. “He’s funky. When he’s got a good slider, he’s hard to pick up. I could even tell from where I was [in left field] that guys didn’t know what was coming.”
The presence of pitchers such as Kuroda is a main reason why Wells believes the team survived the rough start.
“Everyone around here knew our pitchers were going to execute, and then it’s just us getting a few runs to win some games,” Wells said. “We didn’t do either one of those in that first week, but you’re going to go through things like that and if you panic when it happens, things will really go south.”
While Girardi keeps waiting for his injured veterans to bring back some clout, he will keep looking for run production from unlikely sources such as he got last night from Gardner.
“Especially after being 1-4, I think guys have responded very well to the slow start,” Girardi said. “We just didn’t play very well the first five games. At times we didn’t pitch, at times we didn’t hit. I’m happy with what guys have done so far and the way they’ve shown their character. They’ve done a good job in people’s absence.”
Gems like Kuroda’s will make that job easier.