Yankees: Loss streak reaches 5 but no one is jumping out of buildings yet

The Yankees are beginning to understand Murphy’s Law rather well. You know, the one that says if anything can go wrong, it will. And for the fifth consecutive game, the Bronx Bombers looked more like the Bronx “Bleepers.” Not to worry though, no one is jumping out of buildings yet.

Yankees manager, Joe Girardi, made the call to send Masahiro Tanaka to the hill today instead of giving him another day and pitching him tomorrow. It was the kind of decision that managers make a hundred times a season and no one notices. Or, if they do see, they quickly forget when the decision results in a win for the team.

But for the Yankees and Girardi, if anything can go wrong now, it will. And it did as Tanaka managed to get through only four innings while giving up eight hits and five big runs. And to add insult to injury in a way, he struck out a remarkable ten batters during his short stint.

Which means that Tanaka is still not making pitches when he needs to, despite his ability to do so. The ace of the Yankees staff was victimized not once but twice with long home runs by another of the no-names in the A’s lineup.

And there’s no reason for anyone to be jumping out of buildings. It’s June, not September.

Except for that next time, when hopefully, Tanaka is likely to remember the name, Ryon Healy, who is having quite a season for himself batting .286 with 17 home runs and 42 RBI. But that’s the way it goes when you are in a stretch like the Yankees are.

The bats went quiet again, and the team proceeded to sleepwalk through inning after inning with no production, scoring one run on a single by Austin Romine and another on a sacrifice fly by Brett Gardner. Three of the team’s four hits came from the bottom of the order where the injury replacements and the middle of the lineup was nowhere to be found. Mama said there’d be days like this.

The cup is still half full

You don’t need to to be an astrophysicist to figure out that this team is in deep doo-doo. But at the same time, this is the same team that won five in a row before they lost five in a row. Girardi withheld both Aaron Hicks and Gary Sanchez from the lineup today, and he intends to give Starlin Castro a well-deserved rest tomorrow. Which is a much needed sign of calm in a storm.

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Sanchez and Hicks remain day to day, and there is no definitive word on Jacoby Ellsbury. Adam Warren is definitely on the 10-day DL and Greg Bird is sliding ever further into oblivion.

But if anyone expected the Yankees to waltz through the season as they have to date, they don’t know baseball, and they certainly don’t have a feel for a baseball season. And when the Red Sox square off against the Astros in a marquee presentation by FOX tonight, the Yankees could easily find themselves in a tie for the AL East lead.

No one who knows baseball ever thought that the Red Sox would not emerge as a serious challenger for the AL East title. And the fact that the Yankees have held them off until the middle of June is a remarkable feather in the cap of the Bombers.

Did anyone think this was gonna be easy?

But with 90+ games remaining on the schedule, let’s not get crazy here. No one thought this would be easy. But the thing to remember, and you can bet the house that the Yankees players will, is that this team has seen what it is capable of accomplishing.

And the good news is that Girardi has been through this many times before, both as a player and manager. During a win streak, you win games you should have lost only because the other team gave them to you.

Yankees: Just how resilient is this “resilient” band of brothers?

The Yankees have been through this many times before on the West Coast. They stink out there. But the team doesn't belong in the ICU. Hardly.

And during a losing streak, you’re wasting games you should have won because, for one reason or another, you gave the win away to your opponent. These are the Yankees right now. And they’re taking a whipping from the lowly Angels and A’s. It happens.

And there’s no reason for anyone to be jumping out of buildings. It’s June, not September.