MINNEAPOLIS — Did the Yankees’ perform a bat tease during the Fourth of July weekend? Or did the wood bark loudly against mediocre Twins pitching?
After they won three of four games at Target Field, the Yankees opted to view the awakening as an indication they are out of what had been more or less a three-month slump.
“The quality of the at-bats is getting better and it lengthens the lineup and we are making pitchers work,’’ Brian McCann said after a harder-than-it-should-have-been 9-7 win in front of 31,171. “We have been getting great pitching all year and once we click offensively on a consistent basis we will be tough.’’
That remains to be seen because the memory of how poorly the Yankees hit during the five-game losing streak they lugged into Target remains fresh. In the five defeats, the Yankees batted .210 (37-for-176) overall and .135 (5-for-37) with runners in scoring position.
Does hitting .315 (34-for-108) and .393 (11-for-28) with runners in scoring position in three of four wins over the Twins delete the previous numbers?
“We swung the bats well and we needed it to give us a little boost to know we have it in us,’’ Mark Teixeira said.
The win allowed the Yankees to remain 3 ½ games back of the AL East-leading Orioles, who beat the Red Sox, 7-6, in 12 innings.
They certainly had enough to devour the slop Ricky Nolasco served in two brutal innings. Teixeira and McCann drove in first-inning runs and Jacoby Ellsbury crushed a three-run homer in the four-run second. The first of Derek Jeter’s two RBIs accounted for the other run.
With Nolasco, who beat the Yankees in late May at Yankee Stadium, gone, the visitors plated three runs in the fourth against Anthony Swarzak. Jeter (3-for-4) and Ellsbury drove in runs and another scored on a balk.
With his right-field platoon partner Alfonso Soriano let go in the morning, Ichiro Suzuki went 3-for-4.
“We will try and carry it into Cleveland,’’ Ellsbury said of the four-game series against the Indians that opens Monday night. “Guys are putting good at-bats together and feeling comfortable at the plate.’’
Staked to a 9-0 lead when he took the mound for the fourth inning, it seemed Hiroki Kuroda was set to give a taxed bullpen an easy day. Instead, Kuroda committed a costly throwing error, gave up four runs and five hits in the fourth. He bounced back with a perfect fifth, but didn’t make it out of the sixth.
“We wound up using many pitchers and if I had gone longer that wouldn’t have happened,’’ said Kuroda, who improved to 6-6 but only went 5 2/3 innings, allowing four runs and seven hits.
Adam Warren followed Kuroda. Then it was Jim Miller and by the time the ninth inning arrived the score was 9-6 and Joe Girardi was calling for David Robertson. He gave up a run and three hits, and had Kurt Suzuki at the plate with two on and two outs, but got him to end the game on a grounder to Jeter. It was Robertson’s 21st save in 23 chances.
So a day that started with the Yankees letting the very popular Soriano go and trading Vidal Nuno for Brandon McCarthy ended on a very positive note.
Now the question facing a lineup that is still waiting for Carlos Beltran and McCann to hit better is this: Was the weekend a tease? Or a sign that after three months the lineup has found a long-awaited groove?