NEW YORK -- There is little argument that with Didi Gregorius at shortstop, the New York Yankees are a much better defensive team than they had been in Derek Jeter's final seasons. Gregorius' range, athleticism and strong throwing arm have surely turned a lot of balls into outs that would have been hits in previous years.
But there is another side to Gregorius' game, a side where his instincts are not always great and his fundamentals not always rock solid.
The many sides of Gregorius were on display in the Yankees' 3-2, 11-inning loss to the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night in the first game of a three-game series at Yankee Stadium.
There was Gregorius the defensive wizard, making two tremendous plays to rob the A's of base hits in the seventh inning, one on which he showed off his rifle arm, and the other his cat-like quickness and range.
Then there was the other Gregorius, the one whose mental lapse caused him to get picked off at first on a 3-2 pitch after leading off with a single in the fifth inning of a tie game. It was the same one who was unable to execute a sacrifice bunt and move a runner along in the ninth inning.
There was also the unlucky Gregorius, the one whom the baseball found at the key moment of the game, when Mark Canha shot a one-hopper just beyond the reach of his glove in the 11th inning, the ball squirting by for the single that drove in the winning run.
"I thought I had a shot at it," he said. "It just hit my glove when I dove for it. If I make that play, it would have saved the game. That's the most important play right there, and I couldn't make it."
It's not Gregorius' fault that the Yankees lost this one, any more than it's the fault of Michael Pineda, who went six innings and allowed seven hits and two runs, or Johnny Barbato, who threw the pitch to Canha and wound up taking his first big-league loss.
Once again, this loss was the fault of New York's bats. The Yankees could not come up with a timely hit in the sixth inning, when they got runners to second and third with two outs, only to see the rally die when Brett Gardner lined out to first.
After that, the Yankees managed one more hit over the final five innings, a ninth-inning leadoff single by Chase Headley that Gregorius couldn't advance and that was subsequently erased when pinch-runner Jacoby Ellsbury got thrown out trying to steal. In what has become a nightly disgrace, the Yankees were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. The only run came on an RBI single by Alex Rodriguez in the first inning.
"You tell the guys, keep putting them on, and eventually it's going to change," Joe Girardi said. "Make sure you have good at-bats. Don't try to do too much. Just keep the line moving. It doesn't have to be a home run, just put a good swing on the ball, and you take your chances. That's basically all you can tell them. Sometimes it can be a broken-bat hit that changes things, and all of a sudden the flood gates open. But right now, we're not getting it."
None of that stopped Gregorius from beating himself up for getting picked off.
"I should have waited to make sure the pitcher was going to the plate first," he said. "That was my mistake."
But he did fault home plate umpire Laz Diaz for his failure to get the bunt down. Facing Oakland pitcher Fernando Rodriguez, Gregorius fouled off two attempts before flying out to shallow right.
"The guy quick-pitched me on the first one, so I was trying to call time on the second one," Gregorius said. "I asked for time like four, five times, but he said he didn't hear me. Apparently I didn't say it loud enough."
Gregorius' ultimately frustrating night mirrored his team's. The Yankees got a good start out of Pineda, three more overpowering relief innings by Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Chasen Shreve, and for the first six innings at least, gave themselves plenty of opportunities to score.
But in the key moments, both Gregorius and the Yankees came up empty.
Asked how he thought the Yankees might fix things, Carlos Beltran said, "I don't know, man. I've been in the league many years. It's just one of those things where right now we're going through, and we're going to go through it many more times during the period of 162 games. We just need to find a way to win ballgames. It doesn't matter how we win the ballgames. That's the most important thing right now."
