NEW YORK (AP) -Joe Girardi wants to look ahead, not behind.
Nearing the end of his first season as the New York Yankees manager, Girardi is aware fans are angry the team almost certainly will miss the playoffs for the first time since 1993.
“I understand fans are upset. I’m upset with where we are. And I don’t blame them with being upset where we are,” he said Friday before the team began its final homestand at Yankee Stadium.
Team co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner gave a blunt assessment a day earlier, saying: “Clearly, a lot of mistakes were made.”
“We’re going to have to look at what has been done wrong over the last five years, which I’ve had one year to try and figure out,” Steinbrenner said. “Clearly, a lot of mistakes were made.”
Girardi didn’t want to respond directly to that.
“To me, playing the blame game doesn’t really do much,” he said. “Yeah, it might good for talk radio and articles but, you know, our job and our thought process is how do we get better and how do we fix it?”
in the AL East, 8 1/2 games behind the AL wild-card leading Boston Red Sox with 16 games remaining. The Yankees keep talking about how they have an outside shot, but they can do that math, and their hearts don’t really seem in it.
Offense slumped because of injuries to catcher Jorge Posada and left fielder Hideki Matsui, combined with poor seasons by second baseman Robinson Cano and center fielder Melky Cabrera. Injuries to Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain weakened the pitching staff.
“I don’t think anyone in this room would have thought that we would have went through what we went through with Hughes and Kennedy, where it’s Sept. 12 and, you know, they haven’t won a game this year,” Girardi said.
Still, he’s not ready to turn his attention to 2009.
“My focus is on this season, not what happens a month from now, two months from now, six months from now,” he said.
Yankee Stadium’s finale is scheduled for Sept. 21 against Baltimore, a nationally televised Sunday night game. New York seems stunned that for the first time since the 1994 strike, postseason games might not be played in baseball’s most famous park.
“You don’t ever want to think that a regular-season game could be your last game here at Yankee Stadium,” Girardi said. “That has not been the case for a long time, and you don’t want to start thinking that way.”
tte (13-13) an extra day of rest, starting him Tuesday against the Chicago White Sox and pitching rookie Alfredo Aceves in Monday’s series opener. Pettitte, a veteran of 11 seasons with the Yankees, four World Series titles and six AL pennants, will then be lined up to pitch the stadium finale.
“It would seem fitting that next Sunday would probably be Andy’s turn,” Girardi said.
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