Quite a turnaround for Yankees' Andrew Heaney

Andrew Heaney sat on a dais in the large tent serving as an interview room and didn’t hide his disgust with himself.

"I didn’t give us any chance to win," Heaney said on Aug. 12.

The lefthander, acquired just before the July 30 trade deadline from the Angels, spoke after allowing seven runs in five innings in a 9-8 walk-off loss to the White Sox in the "Field of Dreams'' game in Dyersville, Iowa.

The three homers Heaney gave up that night ran his total to eight allowed in 15 innings as a Yankee. He ran those totals to nine and 16 when the Red Sox's Xander Bogaerts took him deep with two outs in the first inning Wednesday night.

But a funny thing happened on the way to here we go again. Heaney almost immediately snapped himself out of it, retiring seven straight batters after the Bogaerts blast and allowing just one hit during the rest of his seven innings.

"He [Bogaerts] put a good swing on it, obviously," Heaney said. "So from there, it’s just about sticking with the game plan."

Heaney came into the night with his hold on a rotation spot tenuous at best. Though Wednesday night wasn’t make or break, the Yankees, in the thick of things for an American League playoff spot, weren’t giving him lifetime tenure in the role, either.

For his part, Aaron Boone believes Heaney had shown signs of what he displayed Wednesday night but had not been able to avoid the big mistake (or mistakes, as had been the case).

"I thought he did a great job with his fastball of having a presence on the inner half, and that made his secondary stuff a little bit better," Boone said. "That they just couldn't hang out over the plate. The fact that he came inside, was effective inside enough, I think helped his secondary pitches tonight . . . In a lot of ways, we've seen him pitch like that. He’s had the slug [homers] that’s really hurt him. Tonight he was able, for the most part, to stay away from that. But a really efficient, strong outing. That's a big-time outing for him."

Though Boone indicated Heaney’s unimpressive numbers in his first three starts didn’t tell the entire story, the lefthander didn’t let himself off the hook in that regard.

"I mean, I [hadn’t] really pitched well, and that's what I was brought here to do," Heaney said. "And so that's not a good feeling, to feel like you're not pulling your weight. Obviously, I'm not going to sit back and relax now. I hope this is the beginning of kind of getting some things moving in the right direction. The ultimate goal here is to win. I was, I think, rightfully frustrated in my last start. I think that was just a tough night all around.''

As Heaney walked off the field after a 1-2-3 seventh Wednesday night, many fans, realizing the pitcher likely was done for the night, gave him a standing ovation.

It was noticed.

"Honestly, a lot of times when I'm walking off the field, I'm pretty focused on just looking in the dugout, getting down the stairs, high-fiving my teammates," Heaney said before offering a slight smile. "But it's hard to miss it when . . . I don't know how many people were here, but it seemed like everybody was cheering. It was more of a feeling than like a sound, I guess. It's a really good feeling. I did my job to give us a chance to win, and with this lineup that we have and this team, you just have to give those guys a chance because they’re going to put up runs."