How much can one baseball team withstand? When does resilience devolve into âsheer exhaustioꌏn?
The Yankees seem determined to find out.
Joe Girardiâs group followed its Worst Loss of the Season on Thursday night with ⌠the Even Worse Worst Loss of the Season on Friday night. A seeâmingly comfortable lead intersected with a battered bullpen at Yankee Stadium, and the result couldnât have been any uglier: 12-8 Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, dropping the Yankees (75-66) behind both Baltimore (75-65) and Cleveland (75-65) â đ§with all of them trailing Tampa Bay (77-63 ) â in the American League wild-card race.
âTheyâre all tough right now. What are you going to do?â asked Andy Pettitte, whose quality start went for naught. âIt was a tough loss, thatâs for surđ ŕźşe.â
The Yankeesâ immune system is turning upon itself. The bullpen, a season-long strength â multiple seasons, really â is a mess; adding injury to, well, injury. Before Fridayâs game, the Yankees diagnosed David Robertsonꊲ with right shoulder tendinitis and shut him down for a few days. During the game, Boone Logan departed with left elbow tightness, although not before he gave up a game-tying grand slam to Yankees nemesis Mike Napoli.
Moreover, the short right-field porch, an ally since the Yankees opened this new place, becađme a momentary enemy when Napoliâs poke tđˇo right hit the top of the wall and bounced into the stands.
Oh, and on Saturday, the Yankees need lefty David Huff to shine in his first start for the club. And ifđ¸ the offense could put up another eight runs, maybe the pitching could actually make that stand up, unlike these past two nigđ¨hts.
Asked if he thought his team was reaching critical mass, Girardi responded, witÜŤh a smile, âAs long as weâre breathing and we can wake up in the morning and show up at the ballpark, no. Itâs when we canât do that, that I lose a little faith.â
With Mariano Rivera out for the night due to excessive recent work, and with Shawn Kelley also out of commission due tâo a right triceps problem, Girardi had to get creative when Pettitte reached his 100-pitch limit upon completing six innings with an 8-3 advantage. The keyđŞ clearly was for Phil Hughes to eat up some outs, and once that bridge collapsed, with Hughes getting just one out, allowing one run and leaving the bases loaded, the domino effect went into place. While the southpaw Logan has enjoyed success against righty hitters this season, youâd still rather go with a right-hander against the ultra-dangerous Napoli, who tied the score with one swing.
âIt exploded on us, you know?â Pettitte said.
While rookie Preston Claiborne picked up the last out in the seventh to preserve the tie, he allowed a Will Middlebrooks single and Shane Victorino homer with one out in the eighth, giving Boston its first lead of the night. Lateđ °r, the fallen phenom Joba âChamberlain allowed a couple of runs to come home on his watch, putting the reborn Yankees offense into a hole from which it couldnât escape.
This Yankees season has been one we wonât soon forget. From their injury-plagued spring training to their defying of expectations for the first two monthâs, from the multiple players suffering second ailments to Alex Rodriguezâs epic battle with team maáŁnagement to Alfonso Sorianoâs return, they kept us vastly entertained, and they seemed poised to add a September rally, too.
Weâve left them for dead seâąveral times, so weâre reluctant to do so again. But gosh, how much more can the Yankees overcome?
âItâs going to be fine,â Pettitte said. âObviously, you hate to struggle. The guys in the pen have been great all year. But weâve had two bad games. Youâve got to love the way the guys are swinging the bat. The offense is playing great. Weâre not going to pitch liđ¤Ąke that. Weâre just not.â
Remember the 1990 movie âFlatliners,â when Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland and others flirtŕ˛ed with death? The posters read, âSome lines shouldnât be đŚcrossed.â
The Yankees are dancing on that line. Theyâre đĽtaunting baseball death. Weâll âąlearn soon enough whether theyâve gone too far this time.