Postgame notes: “Nobody expects more out of us than ourselves”

Not that you need more numbers to prove what you already know, but here are a few just to drive the point home:

• The Yankees hit .165 during this three-game series. They had one double, one home run and scored four runs.

• When Didi Gregorius homered this afternoon, it ended a 144-at-bat drought without a Yankees homer. This from the team with the third-most homers in the big leagues.

• With runners in scoring position, the Yankees were 0-for-14 this series. Since August 5, they’ve hit .184 in RISP at-bats.

“You can say we ran into good pitchers,” Brian McCann said. “But I think the at-bats overall probably could get better.”

The Astros do have the lowest team ERA in the American League, but the Yankees have scored the second-most runs in baseball. Essentially, they’re supposed to be as well-equipped as anyone to handle a staff like Houston’s. But when the Yankees’ offense goes cold, it really goes cold.

From July 25 to August 4, the Yankees scored 90 runs in 10 games (an easy-to-calculate nine runs per game). Immediately after that, they scored nine runs in their next seven games. After that, 33 runs in their next six games (5.5 runs per game). After that, they fell into their current slide of 22 runs in seven games (slightly more than 3.1 runs per game).

“The last couple days I didn’t think (the energy) was real good,” Gardner said. “But we lost 15-1, and today obviously just kind of flat. So, unfortunately, everything starts up at the top of the lineup, and I didn’t do anything up at the top of the lineup didn’t get on base. That’s our job up there, and I didn’t do a good job of that today, haven’t been doing a good job of that recently.”

Does winning provide energy, or does energy lead to winning? Probably goes a little both ways. What’s unquestionable, though, is Gardner’s assertion that he hasn’t been doing much at the top of the order. I posted the stats for the past week earlier today, but how about these stats for the month of August:

Ellsbury: .258/.293/.398
Gardner: .193/.302/.241
Rodriguez: .138/.250/.250
Teixeira: .175/.242/.333

Ellsbury’s improved lately, but those are the top four spots in the lineup, and they haven’t been very good since the end of July. That’s an obvious problem.

For whatever it’s worth, Mark Teixeira said he thought the team’s energy was fine, it was only the results that were lacking. McCann said basically the same thing. Girardi said he still sees a team grinding out at-bats, but clearly falling well short of expectation.

“Nobody expects more out of us than ourselves,” Gardner said. “So we’re working hard trying to do our best to get out of it and right the ship. … I think that when things are going well, it kind of gets contagious and you score a bunch of runs in bunches. And when things are going bad, it seems to kind of snowball. When things are going bad, nobody in the lineup outside of maybe Carlos (Beltran) stands out to me swinging the bat really really well the last several weeks. Other than that, we just haven’t been able to get a whole lot going. It’s definitely frustrating, but five weeks of baseball left, 35-40 games, and hopefully we can start playing a little better.”

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• First start back from a forearm strain, Michael Pineda looked pretty good early, but his outing completely fell apart in the fifth inning. “The pitches are working good,” Pineda said. “I don’t have a really good location in this inning.”

• No health concerns for Pineda, just wasn’t very sharp in the fifth. “I don’t feel good right now because I want to win,” he said. “The only thing is, keep my head up and continue working to be ready for my next start. The good thing is, I’m feeling good and I’ll be back for pitching every five days. Just keep going.”

• Girardi on Pineda: “You know, I thought he did pretty good. That inning got away from him (after) the confusion at first base, two people at first base. The inning kind of got away from him and it cost us some runs, so I thought he threw the ball pretty well.”

• Before the fifth inning, Pineda had allowed three base runners in the first four innings. The fifth started with four straight batters reaching base. He’d thrown only 71 pitches when Girardi pulled him (and he was cleared for closer to 85). “I just thought it was time for a change,” Girardi said.

• Nick Goody was called up today, pitched a scoreless ninth inning, and was immediately optioned back to Triple-A when the game was over. Barring an injury, neither Goody nor Nick Rumbelow will be eligible to rejoin the team on September 1 because they won’t have been in the minors for a full 10 days.

• Why let Mark Teixeira hit in the ninth? “I wanted to get him an at-bat left-handed,” Girardi said. “We’re hoping that we’ll have him Friday. I really just gotta wait and see.”

• Teixeira on how he’s feeling: “Obviously it still bothers me to run, but a day off tomorrow is really going to help and hopefully it feels a lot better on Friday. … Tomorrow we’re going to rest it. We’ve been throwing everything we have at it, pushing it a lot and trying to strengthen it and trying to do everything we can. Tomorrow we’re going to let it rest, and hopefully that will make a big difference.”

• We know Teixeira is hurt, we know Ellsbury is hurt, and we’ve seen Girardi try to rest A-Rod. But is there something wrong with Gardner? “I think it’s the time of year he’s kind of beat up like a lot of people in the game,” Girardi said. “And right now he’s scuffling, too. We’ve got a lot of guys scuffling at the same time, and it’s hard to score runs when you’re like that. But, he’s just a little beat up.” Naturally, Gardner said he’s fine.

• Any chance Rodriguez plays the field this weekend in Atlanta? “Right now, I don’t see it,” Girardi said. “I’ll take a day off, sleep on it and see what I think, but he hasn’t been in the field in a long time.”

• Didi Gregorius had two hits including a two-run home run. Those were his first RBI since August 2 in Chicago. The home run was his first since July 27 in Texas.

• Carlos Beltran extended his hitting streak to 10 games. This is his second 10-game hitting streak of the month. He reached base three times for the first time since August 15 in Toronto.

• A quick reminder that I’ll be doing a chat tomorrow at noon. Come hang out for a little while and we’ll talk about a disappointing lineup. It’ll be fun!

• Final word goes to Gardner: “Disappointing the way (the home stand) finished for sure. The Astros obviously have a really good team, (but) you win game one against them in a three game series, you’ve got to find a way to win game two or game three to win the series, and obviously we didn’t do that. And we haven’t been swinging the bats well collectively as a group, but hopefully that changes this weekend.”

Associated Press photos

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