BALTIMORE — When the Yankees scored five runs in the ninth inning Sunday, it appeared as though they had snapped out of their collective funk in clutch situations in the postseason.
But old habits die hard, and the team's struggles with runners in scoring position returned in the Monday's 3-2 loss to the Orioles in Game 2. The Yankees went 2 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left 10 runners on base — reviving flashbacks to last year's American League Division Series Game 5, when they stranded 11 runners in a 3-2 loss to Detroit.
"We had some opportunities to score," shortstop Derek Jeter said. "It just didn't happen."
The Yankees' intimidating lineup (Curtis Granderson, who hit 43 home runs in the regular season, batted eighth Monday) came up short against Baltimore's Wei-Yin Chen.
He worked out of jams in the first, third and fourth innings to pick up the win, allowing two runs (one earned) in six and a third innings.
Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees' struggling No. 3 hitter, had a key opportunity to put the team ahead in the seventh but was struck out by Darren O'Day, who has now struck Rodriguez out twice in the last two games.
"You can't get frustrated," Rodriguez said. "Our objective is to win three games in this series. Obviously, you want to go out and produce. I'm going to keep attacking, I think our offense is going to keep attacking, and get him in New York."
Rodriguez pointed back to a first-inning at-bat that might have shifted momentum right from the start. With runners on first and second, he hit a scorching line drive to second that was snared on a nice play by Robert Andino, who doubled Jeter off second.
If that ball gets through the infield, it could be 1-0 Yankees and Rodriguez could momentarily be off the hook for struggling at the plate. But it did not.
"That's the thing about the playoffs," Rodriguez said. "You can have the biggest play of the game in the first inning."
That was not the only opportunity, however. The Yankees had runners on first and second with two outs in the third, but Robinson Cano tapped back to Chen to end the threat. Then, in the fourth, they loaded the bases with one out for Eduardo Nunez, who popped out softly to shortstop. Jeter then grounded out to third to end the inning.
The biggest play of the game was in the seventh, after the Rodriguez strikeout, when Brian Matusz got Nick Swisher to fly out to left with runners on second and third.
"I believe these guys are going to come through," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. "I believe they're going to put up good at-bats, they're going to keep putting runners on, and they're going to break through."
In two postseason games so far, the Yankees are 5 for 16 with runners in scoring position and 18 runners left on base, numbers that are just a bit better than their regular-season average (.256). In the 2011 postseason, they went 11 for 22 with R.I.S.P., and it was not enough to advance past the first round.
The Yankees players were quick to refrain from drawing too many conclusions from the similarities.
"It's nothing to go crazy about," catcher Russell Martin said. "We're a good team and we're going to bounce back and give them a hard time back home."
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