Yankees have time to stew over what went wrong in season’s most gut-wrenching loss

We were about to get another lesson, all of us, all of us who sometimes forget that baseball season isn’t football season, that slow and steady really does usually win the race.

Four days ago we kept wanting to put a mirror under the Yankees’ collective nose, see if they were still breathing. The All-Star break would be filled with much clamor and clatter, and much curiosity if there might well be fundamental change by the time the Yankees reconvened at Yankee Stadium at the end of the coming week.

Then the Yankees went to Baltimore.

And the Yankees started to look a lot more like the Yankees of May and less like the Yankees of July. They won behind Gerrit Cole on Friday. They won behind Luis Gil on Saturday .

And …

Well, then there was Sunday.

Sunday, they trailed 3-2 entering the ninth. Craig Kimbrel, an old friend from Boston days, walked Trent Grisham leading off. He walked Oswaldo Cabrera. You could see the Yankee dugout was starting to look as it looked a few months ago: They believed they would win. They believed someone would tie the game, then win the game.

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And it seems like Ben Rice had done both.

Here came Rice, eight days after hitting three homers in one day back home against the Red Sox, delivering the most magnificent swing of his young baseball life, crushing a Kimbrel pitch high and deep and over the right-center-field wall. That strong faction of Camden Yards belonging to Yankees fans exploded in delight.

It was 5-3.

With three more outs the Yankees — left for dead on the flight from St. Pete to Baltimore — would float into the All-Star break in first place in the AL East, despite all the negativity that had swirled about them in recent days, having delivered a gut-punch to the Orioles at no extra charge. Yep. We were about to be reminded again how foolish it is to treat baseball games like football games.

Except for one thing.

The Yankees never got those three outs. They only got two of them. It was at that point that they regressed at the worst possible time to the worst possible version of themselves. Before it was over, it would be 6-5 Orioles . It would be the most gut-wrenching loss of the year. And the lesson learned was far different one than the one that was about to be presented. Instead we got this one, a tried and true chestnut:

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Don’t give a good team extra outs.

Good teams know what do with those extra outs.

Good teams knock you out of the ring with extra outs.

“That’s a killer, right?” Aaron Boone said when the carnage was complete. “Let’s acknowledge that. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for us. Acknowledge that, too.”

These next four days will feel like four weeks, because this game probably should’ve been won two different times. Anthony Volpe — who’d saved two runs early with a brilliant play, same as he always does — booted a grounder that would’ve been the 27th out . Alex Verdugo — who made his own terrific play that probably saved a run in the eighth, who’s mostly played an elite left field all year — took a false step in on a Cedric Mullins fly ball that also would’ve been the 27th out, and instead it flew over his head. The two gaffes plated three runs. And that was that.

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“It was the wrong play,” Verdugo said. “Leave it at that. I take a lot of pride out there defensively. This one’s on me.”

It was the accountable thing to do and there was some truth in that. In truth this game — and this monthlong stretch that’s stripped the Yankees of a bunch of their mojo — is on everyone. This one’s just going to hurt a little bit more because there’s no games for a few days. You three-putt from 3 feet on 18 of your weekly golf game, you’re going to stew a little bit for a few days.

The Yankees are going to stew a little bit. They can. Their manager, whether you choose to believe him or not, will go another way.

“It’s all right here,” Boone said. “We get to write an amazing script because we’ve put ourselves in great position.

“There’s a lot of good in there,” he said, pointing at his clubhouse.

He believes that, and has been firm about it all across this downturn. If the Yankees had gotten that 27th out Sunday, it might be an easier sell for everyone else. Then again, all the Yankees have to do it look at the schedule. Boone may often sound like a Pollyanna but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. There’s a lot of good out there waiting for the Yankees if only they can grab it.

If only.

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