The LoHud Yankees Blog

Yankees lineup

1. Derek Jeter SS

2. Curtis Granderson CF

3. Robinson Cano 2B

4. Alex Rodriguez 3B

5. Raul Ibanez DH

6. Nick Swisher RF

7. Mark Teixeira 1B

8. Russell Martin C

9. Dewayne Wise LF

Phil Hughes RHP

Royals lineup

1. Jarrod Dyson CF

2. Eric Hosmer 1B

3. Billy Butler DH

4. Mike Moustakas 3B

5. Jeff Francoeur RF

6. Alex Gordon LF

7. Irving Falu 2B

8. Alcides Escobar SS

9. Humberto Quintero C

Luke Hochevar RHP

TV/Radio: MY9/WCBS 880

Umpires: Mark Wegner HP, Mike Muchlinski 1B, Wally Bell 2B, Mike Winters 3B

Weather: 67 degrees, mostly cloudy

Negative numbers: The Yankees are 6 for their last 72 with runners in scoring position and 7 for 37 overall this season with the bases loaded.

More negative numbers, or at least even numbers: This 21-21 start marks the latest the Yankees have been at .500 since they were 33-33 heading into play on June 12, 2008.

Jeter watch: The Captain owns 3,148 hits, 16th on the all-time list. Paul Waner is 15th at 3,152 and George Brett is 14th at 3,154.

Update, 7:12: Impressive start for Phil Hughes, 1-2-3 first, looking for his fourth straight good outing.

Update, 7:28: Hughes hitting 94 mph, two perfect innings now.

Update, 7:34: Boos for Teixeira after rapping into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play. Teixeira now 3 for his last 17. Swisher is now 3 for his last 28.

Update, 7:42: Hughes hangs a curve and Humberto Quintero lines it into the right-field corner for a double and a 1-0 lead in the third.

Brian Heyman here today at Yankee Stadium for Chad. Haven’t been here for a while. I go away and the Yankees can’t hit in the clutch anymore and are in last place, or at least tied for last with Boston, at 21-21, 5 1/2 back. The world is upside down. But it’s only May, and we’ve seen them sputtering this month before and wind up fine, albeit with Mariano Rivera in the team’s big picture.

Asked if there’s a feeling around here that the Yankees shouldn’t ever be in last place, Joe Girardi said, “I think as players, fans and an organization, you always feel that way. You might be in last place because you’re 0-1. But we feel we’re a much better club than what we’ve played. We’re in last place, but every team in our division is .500 or better.”

There doesn’t seem to be a lot that Girardi can do. He moved Mark Teixeira down to seventh last night and has him there tonight. But overall the Yankees are locked into these guys. They have to hit. There aren’t many answers on the bench.

“These are the guys that have to get it done for us,” Girardi said. “These are our guys that we’re committed to, that we believe in, that we’ve seen do it year after year after year and we’re committed to them. They have to find a way to get it done. It’s no different than a year that they put up 35 and 115. They’ve had to find a way to get it done. In saying this, I”m not putting pressure on them. But I’ve seen them do it over and over.”

Girardi said he hasn’t heard anything out of the ordinary from ownership. And he said he has tried to stay on an even keel.

“You don’t get too high when things are going well,” Girardi said. “And you don’t get too low when things are going bad in a sense. I think it’s important you remain the same, pretty much the same. You might have a few more conversations with players when they’re struggling. I’m not a guy that’s going to turn over a table. I’m not a guy who’s going to jump on a table when we win, either, and do a dance. That’s not who I am. I’ve found that managers that have that pretty constant personality are the ones that get the most out of their players.”

Rivera was in the clubhouse walking without crutches, although he did have a bit of a limp. He said the pain is more tolerable with the torn ACL. He has been working on strengthening the knee and is still taking blood thinners for his clot. So there’s still no date yet for the surgery. Girardi said the rehab now may cut down on some of the time needed on the other side of the operation.

“It’s not frustrating,” Rivera said about his situation, “because you can’t do anything about it.”

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. Cano 2B
4. Rodriguez 3B
5. Ibanez DH
6. Swisher RF
7. Teixeira 1B
8. Martin C
9. Wise LF
Hughes P

The crowd was pretty thin last night, but in many ways, those rain-soaked fans at Yankee Stadium made more noise than the Yankees lineup. With every missed opportunity, boos and groans filled the air.

“It’s part of the game,” Joe Girardi said. “You’re going to hear it on the road, you’re going to hear it at home when you don’t play well, and it’s because our fans have passion and they want to win, and I understand that. So do the guys in that room. If they’re unhappy with us, believe me, we’re probably unhappier.”

I think it was during my chat last week that someone asked whether the slumping pieces of the Yankees lineup — Alex Rodriguez, Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Mark Teixeira — were starting to feel the heat from the home crowd. There’s no doubt, the Yankees are well aware of the fans’ frustration.

“Without a question,” Rodriguez said. “These are the greatest fans in the world. They’re passionate. We all have the same frustration, we’re all working hard, but the one thing — we’re a confident bunch. We’re working hard, and we will turn this around. No doubt about it.”

Mark Teixeira is the Yankees No. 7 hitter now, and if he keeps hitting the way he has been, it will make good sense to limit his at-bats and keep him out of the middle of the order. But last night’s lineup shuffle only masked the real problem, it didn’t fix it.

Teixiera’s not hitting this season. That’s a far great concern than where he’s hitting. The Yankees are still at their best with Teixeira right in the thick of things, driving in runs and performing like the elite hitter he’s supposed to be.

“I never really worry about the numbers because every year they’re there,” Teixeira said. “At the end of the year I’ll put my stats up against any power hitter in baseball.”

At his best, Teixeira has been one of the best all-around hitters in baseball. He was an MVP candidate just three years ago, and he’s finished top 20 in MVP voting the past two seasons. Even with a diminished batting average, Teixeira’s been a run-producing home run hitter. Simply getting him back to his 2011 level of production would be a real boost for the Yankees.

“The biggest thing that you want out of a hitter is production,” Joe Girardi said. “Average is important, yes, but average doesn’t always mean production. You can become a slap hitter and hit 3.10 and drive in 50 runs and hit 10 home runs and we’d all be saying, we’d probably like the other Mark Teixeira better, the one that 30 plus home runs a driving in 110 to 120 runs. So for me, the production is the important thing, not the average.”

For now, the Yankees will bury Teixeira in the bottom of the order while they try to get him past this slump, but Teixeira batting seventh will never be the preference. Hiding the problem doesn’t fix the problem. Teixeira might be the Yankees No. 7 hitter, but that doesn’t change the need for him to hit like a No. 3 hitter.

“You play 162 games a year for as long as I have, you’re always looking at ways to get better,” Teixeira said. “But I’ve always worried about the long haul and the team’s success. By doing that, at the end of the year, my stats are always good.”

With four more years on his contract, the Yankees have to hope that he’s right.

Associated Press photo

Derek Jeter is the calm one. He’s steady, largely defined by his ability to be in control no matter what the situation.

“I’ve been playing for a long time,” Jeter said. “What you try to do is you try take positives out of every game, even though at times it’s hard to. … I thought we hit a lot of balls hard. I understand you guys have stories to write and talk about, but for us, that’s the positives that we take. That’s all you can do. You have good at-bats. You hit the ball hard. You can’t control where it goes, you hope no one’s there to catch it, but at times it seems like there’s 20 people out there playing defense. It happens every year, it happens to every team. It doesn’t look good when you’re going through it, but you’ve got to have confidence that you’ll bounce back.”

But doesn’t this feel like the same thing happening over and over and over again?

“Depends on how you look at it,” Jeter said. “You can look at it as, ‘I just had a good at-bat. I hit a ball hard. Damn, they caught it.’ Or you can take the here-we-go-again approach. I’ve always taken the first one.”

—

Alex Rodriguez is the natural with a work ethic. He is considered one of the great players of his generation, but he’s also developed a reputation for his off-the-field approach.

“I know what I can do, and I feel great,” he said. “That’s the frustrating part. I feel like I’m taking really good swings. I’m seeing the ball well. I feel like I’m going to crush every time. Had a great session today with Kevin Long, tons of video work. If you ask me before the game, I feel like I’m going to go out and hit three rockets. One through nine we’re not swinging the bats well. You can shuffle it any way you want. Every time I go up there, I feel like I’m going to crush. And I haven’t been doing enough of that.”

Going 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position, do you focus more on the 0 or the 13? Do you see the opportunities themselves or the missed chances?

“You try building on 13 chances,” Rodriguez said. “We’re doing certain things right. We’re getting those opportunities, now we just have to finish, and become better closers. Opportunities are good though. … I’m going to continue to attack. This team’s going to continue to attack. That’s the way you get out of situations like this, is by being assertive, confident, keep working hard. I think overall the team will do that. But you can’t lay back. You can’t get passive. You’ve got to continue to attack.”

—

Joe Girardi is the patient manager preaching confidence, but today, even he decided it was time for a change, dropping Mark Teixeira to seventh in the order.

“You know I don’t like to lose,” he said. “Everyone in that room doesn’t like to lose. But it’s not from lack of effort. If I saw a lack of effort, that would upset me. But I’m not seeing that. I’m seeing guys do their work. I’m seeing them do their work on the field, off the field, paying attention. It’s just frustrating when it doesn’t go your way.”

Thirteen was the Yankees most hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position since July 6, 1990 when the team went 0-for-14 in 12 innings against the Twins. The Yankees have six hits in this past 72 at-bats with runners in scoring position. At what point does that become a trend that might not turn around?

“I don’t think I would ever get there, I don’t,” Girardi said. “I’ve seen these guys do it too many times and be successful, and put good at-bats. So in my heart I believe it’s going to change.”

—

• The Yankees have lost seven of their past nine games and fell to 21-21 for the season. They fell into a last-place tie with the Red Sox. “It does get a little frustrating, there’s no doubt about that,” Nick Swisher said. “More than anything, we just have to pull together, have faith in each other and know that we’re all capable of doing the job. The back of everybody’s baseball card looks pretty good. The start hasn’t’ been good for a lot of us, it’s been good for some of us, but we have to keep pushing. This team is a never-give-up type of team, so regardless of where we are right now, we’re going to keep fighting. I can promise you that.”

• The Yankees have lost all 10 games in which they have not hit a home run this season. According to Elias, that’s the longest such losing streak to start a season in franchise history.

• Last time the Yankees were shutout at home against the Royals was August 18, 1999. This was the Yankees most lopsided shutout loss of the season and their worst at home since a 6-0 loss to the Red Sox in May of 2011.

• Girardi said Hiroki Kuroda battled tonight, allowing 10 base runners and three runs through 5.1 innings. “I didn’t have all my stuff obviously,” Kuroda said. “But I tried to stay tough.”

• Kuroda was one out away from getting through a scoreless first inning when Billy Butler singled and Mike Moustakas homered. Kuroda wanted the pitch up and in. It stayed up and away. “I had to pay for it,” he said.

• Kuroda became the first Yankees starter since Andy Pettitte in 1999 to lose to the Royals twice in one season.

• Rodriguez’s double in the sixth inning was the 500th of his career. He also had a single in the game, a first-inning hit that moved Robinson Cano from first to third. It snapped an 0-for-16 stretch for Rodriguez with runners on base.

• Give Rodriguez credit for a great slide to go from second to third on a fly ball to left field in the sixth inning. I’m sure he’d rather be taking credit for a big hit with a runner in scoring position.

• Russell Martin had his first multi-hit game since May 5 in Kansas City. He’s hitting .412 against the Royals and .136 against every other team in baseball.

• Felipe Paulino became the second Royals pitcher since 1995 to beat the Yankees twice in the same season. “He’s been throwing well for them,” Jeter said. “He throws hard. He mixes it up. It seems like I’ve been saying the same thing about every pitcher we’ve seen the past couple of weeks.”

• Manny Banuelos has been placed on the Triple-A disabled list with a sore left elbow. He was on the DL earlier this season because of a back injury. Eduardo Nunez is also on the DL with a hurt right thumb.

• I guess we’ll give the final word to Rodriguez, although frankly, it seems like everyone is out of things to say about this situation: “I think we have a lot of baseball to play,” Rodriguez said. “Just take it one day at a time. Obviously there’s a lot of frustration in here. We know we’re capable of doing a lot more, and we will. But tomorrow would be a great day to start.”

Associated Press photo

A new batting order made absolutely no difference for the Yankees tonight. With Mark Teixeira dropped to seventh, the lineup still went 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position and lost to the Royals 6-0 in a game nearly identical to other game the Yankees have played the past week and a half. With no outs and the bases loaded in the third, the heart of the order couldn’t drive in a run while Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez struck out and Raul Ibanez just missed a grand slam. Teixeira went 1-for-4 and left a runner at third base with an inning-ending strikeout in the sixth. Hiroki Kuroda allowed three runs through 5.1 innings, and his record slipped to 3-6.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (21-20)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Raul Ibanez LF
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C

RHP Hiroki Kuroda (3-5, 4.50)
Kuroda vs. Royals

ROYALS (16-24)
Jarrod Dyson CF
Eric Hosmer 1B
Billy Butler DH
Mike Moustakas 3B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Alex Gordon LF
Alcides Escobar SS
Chris Getz 2B
Humberto Quintero C

RHP Felipe Paulino (1-1, 1.93)
Paulino vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 7:05 p.m., YES Network

WEATHER: The tarp came off the field about an hour ago. The forecast isn’t great, but it seems to be clearing out.

UMPIRES: HP Mike Winters, 1B Mark Wegner, 2B Mike Muchlinski, 3B Wally Bell

ROYAL SUCCESS: Robinson Cano has hit safely in each of his past 13 games against Kansas City dating back to August 13, 2010. He has a .302 combined average off Royals pitchers over the stretch. … Alex Rodriguez has 46 career home runs against Kansas City, tied for his fifth most against any team and the second most by any active player against the Royals (Jim Thome has 49).

FIVE AWAY: Derek Jeter is five hits behind Paul Waner for 15th place on baseball’s all-time hits list. Jeter has 3,147.

SLOW START: The Yankees have let opponents score within the first two innings in 31 of 41 games this season. They’ve allowed a total of 85 runs in the first three innings this season and 97 runs in the fourth or later.

UPDATE, 7:18 p.m.: Moustakas takes Kuroda deep, a two-run homer just inside the right foul pole for a 2-0 Royals lead in the first.

UPDATE, 7:45 p.m.: Teixeira’s first at-bat is a strikeout, part of a quick 1-2-3 second inning for the Yankees.

UPDATE, 8:02 p.m.: Kuroda’s third walk of the inning has loaded the bases, and one of those walked batters has already scored. It’s 3-0 in the third, Kuroda in a bit of a jam (obviously).

UPDATE, 8:03 p.m.: Grounder to third gets Kuroda out of it.

UPDATE, 8:20 p.m.: Ibanez very nearly had a grand slam, but the at-bats that really let the Yankees down were bases-loaded strikeouts by Cano and Rodriguez with the bases loaded. Line it up however you like, this hitters have to produce for the lineup to do its job.

UPDATE, 9:06 p.m.: Great slide by Rodriguez to take third on a fly ball to left.

UPDATE, 9:20 p.m.: Freddy Garcia’s been pretty good since moving into the bullpen, but he just gave up a two-run homer to push the Royals lead to 5-0 in the seventh. It’s getting ugly.

UPDATE, 9:38 p.m.: Good grief. Cano’s grounder to third means the Yankees are 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position tonight. At some point, you have to think this will even out, but right now these guys just can’t get a big hit. It’s kind of amazing to watch. It keeps happening, time after time.

Joe Girardi’s been hesitant to make this change, and when he decided the time had finally come, he talked it over with Mark Teixeira.

“He’s been the focus of our lineup and if the other guys were hitting, he probably wouldn’t be a focus,” Girardi said. “I mean, there’s a lot of other guys who are struggling in those situations, some worse than he is. And so I just thought, he hasn’t played in three days. I’m going to move him down and see what happens.”

As Girardi explained it, Teixeira wasn’t thrilled, but he understood. When he met with the media, Teixeira seemed to have no problem with the decision.

“Everyone knows I’m not 100 percent,” Teixeira said. “I’ve just been really trying to grind it the last, well, really the whole season basically. It just makes you appreciate when you are healthy. I’d love to be able to say that I’m 100 percent and strong, but I haven’t been driving the ball like I should be this year. It’s been a rough go. It really doesn’t matter where I hit, anyway.”

After changing his diet the winter, Teixeira arrived in spring training convinced he was in the best shape of his career and in for a huge season. He said that’s part of what’s made this so frustrating — he got sick early, the cough has lingered, and he hasn’t felt like himself since that first week of the season. He acknowledges that the numbers aren’t good, and he recognizes that it’s been more than a week or two.

He doesn’t expect to be pitched any differently now that he’s hitting at the bottom of the order.

“I’m still Mark Teixeira,” he said. “I’ve still put up some pretty good numbers in my career, so I don’t think they’re going to just start under-handing it to me. I wish they would, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Girardi indicated that the move might not last long if Teixeira gets his season turned around quickly.

“I said, ‘My goal is to get you back to where you belong,’” Girardi said. “Just (moving him down) to maybe get him going a little bit.”

• Girardi said Dave Robertson will likely join Brett Gardner in Tampa on Thursday. The Yankees are hopeful that Gardner will begin swinging and Robertson will begin throwing soon after arriving in Florida. Robertson is eligible to come off the disabled list either Sunday or Monday — don’t remember which — but that won’t happen.

• Gardner is expected to have an MRI either tomorrow or Wednesday to make sure there’s no damage still in his elbow. “I think we’ve missed Gardy,” Girardi said. “I think you can see the value of Gardy a little bit more now that we haven’t had him. Hopefully he is turning the corner with that elbow.”

• Eduardo Nunez has been placed on the Triple-A disabled list with a thumb injury. Manny Banuelos has also been placed on the Triple-A DL, but I haven’t heard a reason yet.

• Girardi said some of the decision to drop Teixeira had to do with the recent production from Raul Ibanez. “You could argue he’s been our most productive hitter with runners on,” Girardi said. “I’ve liked what he’s done and I just felt I would leave him there for now. We can evaluate it every day or every week, or however we want to do it, but Ibanez has been pretty good.”

• The tarp is still on the field, but the players are starting to throw in the outfield to get loose. Girardi said he expects to play tonight, and it does seem like the rain has stopped.

Associated Press photo

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Raul Ibanez LF
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C

RHP Hiroki Kuroda