This Week in Yankees Baseball: Joe Girardi Leans On Joe Torre In Tough Times

Welcome to This Week In Yankees Baseball. The Yankees hot bats have cooled off, and the Toronto Blue Jays are breathing down the Bombers´ backs. As it all happens, the Joe Torre influence is showing up from Joe Girardi — maybe like never before.

“There’s a long way to go, Girardi said according to MLB.com. ¨ You can make a lot of these two games and, obviously, I said this was an important series coming in. But really what’s going to determine the division is you’ve got two months to go and how you play in the next two months, not two games,” said Girardi. “Obviously, we lose a tough one last night — pretty good pitchers’ duel for a long time today, we lose today. This is the one thing I know about this group is they’ve been very resilient and they’ve bounced back very well — and we’ll be back tomorrow.” [related category]

Torre´s way was always to keep an even keel. Bring the guys back down to earth when they were riding high, and show confidence in them when they were struggling. ¨Unless you have bad times, you can´t appreciate the good times,¨ Torre said. And right now that´s exactly the type of leadership the Yankees need.

Toronto has been unstoppable since the MLB All-Star game with recent acquisitions Troy Tulowitzki leading the way at the top of the order, and David Price mowing teams down from the mound.

With the Yankees offense sputtering, it is easy to forget that it was just last Tuesday that the Yankees scored 13 runs, and a week ago Sunday that they scored 12. And remember when they scored 21 on July 28? Offense like that doesn´t just disappear into thin air. What has happened the last few games is due in part to good pitching but it is due more to probability, the odds have just been paying the Yankees back.

Still, the Yanks are 4-6 in their last 10 games. Shortstop Didi Gregorius is batting .300 in that span. Maybe it is time to move him up in the order.  And it´s time to accept that Nathan Eovaldi is for real with his 11-2 record. Luis Severino  struck out seven and has an ERA of 1.80. Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda, Eovali and Ivan Nova are a solid four for the postseason.

What Toronto needs to remember is that getting to first place is one thing, and staying there, if they were to get there,  is another. Three games do not make a season. Joe Torre and Joe Girardi know that.

And they are right. The Yankees will be back.