On the evening of Friday, June 20, the Yankees season was on the verge of turnaround, finally, at long last, after 72 puzzling, problematic games.
The Yankees entered the bottom of the ninth inning against the Orioles that night trailing 3-1. They exited 5-3 winners, thanks to Zach Britton leaving a meaty fastball up and Carlos Beltran launching it high, far and gone to left field.
The dramatics were nice, but this was better: Beltran had two hits that night. So did Brian McCann. Mark Teixeira had a hit and an RBI. Both Teixeira and McCann reached in that ninth inning, and pinch runners for both were there to greet Beltran at home plate.
Afterward, Joe Girardi had this to say: “These are all very good players who have had very good careers. Sometimes you have to be patient and realize that you don’t just forget how to play this game. I think we’re starting to see that.”
The Yankees were 39-33, their high-water mark for the season at the time. They still trailed the Blue Jays by a game and a half, but nobody much believed in the Blue Jays and their ability to keep their head above water.
They led the Orioles by two full games, and the O’s had just learned that they were likely to lose their All-Star catcher, Matt Wieters, to Tommy John surgery.
Said Teixeira, in the giddy afterglow that night: “Sometimes, you can just tell when you’re about to really hit a groove as a team.”
The Yankees lost the next day. They lost the day after, this time with the heretofore bulletproof Masahiro Tanaka on the mound.
The Orioles left town even in the standings with the Yankees, who would lose their next two games as well, and nine out of 11, and by the time the dust had settled on July 2, the Yankees were 41-42, 3¹/₂ games behind the Orioles, and that really good grove had been replaced by the first realities of a sourpuss season.
“We have a lot of season left,” Girardi said that night. And he was right. The Yankees inched over .500 for keeps 16 days later. They’ve been as high as seven games over a couple times.
And every once in a while, they will still fall back on muscle memory and declare the season still relatively young, although the tone is more dire now.
Girardi, before Tuesday’s series-opening game with the Red Sox: “I wouldn’t say this is do-or-die, but very important. We obviously need to win some games on this homestand. And for us to be successful, we need a lot of guys to get hot this month.”
Really, at this point, what else can Girardi say?
He gets increasingly annoyed at the questions he must answer about Derek Jeter these days, and in defending his captain he has grown increasingly frustrated, regularly pointing out all the .230s and .240s that still dot his lineup, next to the names of so many, including the troika of Beltran (.240), McCann (.234) and Teixeira (.223) who Girardi hoped (or, more likely, wished) had found themselves 63 games earlier — a period in which the Yankees have gone 31-32, fallen helplessly behind the Orioles, and into a four-game hole for the last wild card.
In Joe Torre’s years, he had a regular mind trick he would play with his veterans when they were having scuffling years.
Right around this time, he would call them into his office, offer a chair and the wisdom of a man who’d hit as high as .363 and as low as .247 as a big-league regular.
“Look,” he would say, “you aren’t going to reach your usual numbers this year. So forget about it. Now just focus on the games we have left, and try to post those numbers going forward. That’s what you can control.”
Of course, that was more helpful when dealing with one struggling veteran, not multiple.
So now Girardi is forced to deal in optical illusions, selling the same commerce he was selling in June, the same ideas, the same hope, because that’s what he’s paid to do.
But June 20 has become Sept. 3 in a hurry. Baseball sometimes happens at a leisurely pace. But not as leisurely as the Yankees need.