Vazquez takes step backward in 8-2 loss to Twins

MINNEAPOLIS - Joe Girardi saw good things ahead for Javier Vazquez. "He seemed to get back on track, and we need him to stay on track," Girardi said before last night's game.

But Vazquez promptly derailed himself in an 8-2 loss to the Twins in front of 39,087 at Target Field.

The Twins, seemingly hitting barrel shot after barrel shot, knocked around Vazquez (3-5) for 5 2/3 innings.

"He left some breaking pitches up tonight,'' Girardi said, "and they didn't miss them."

Vazquez, who shut out the Mets for six innings last Friday before being removed because of a bruised right index finger, allowed five runs and eight hits before being replaced by Chan Ho Park with two outs in the sixth. He gave up four doubles, a triple and a home run.

Jason Kubel drove in five runs for the Twins with an RBI double and solo homer off Vazquez and a three-run shot off Chad Gaudin.

"The off-speed stuff they hit pretty good today," Vazquez said.

Nick Blackburn (6-1) gave up his share of hard-hit balls, allowing nine hits, but gave up only two runs in seven innings, the continuation of recent issues with the Yankees' offense.

The Yankees (28-19) somehow won two of three here despite totaling six runs in the three games.

"This is baseball. We're not going to be perfect all the time," said Robinson Cano, who had two hits - as did Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira - and drove in both runs. "We're going to have some ups and downs. We're going to put it together soon."

It looked as if Vazquez had been putting it together with two consecutive good starts after his earlier struggles. Last night's outing, he and Girardi said, wasn't necessarily a regression to the bad old days of April.

"You can't make too much of one start," Girardi said. "He made some mistakes and he seemed to correct it in the later innings a little bit."

"It's just part of the game," Vazquez said. "I threw a couple of good games [before] but you're going to have some tough games too. I just have to keep battling, keep going forward and hopefully the next time I'll do better."

Doubles by Teixeira and Cano in the sixth moved the Yankees within 4-2, but Vazquez gave the run back in the bottom of the inning on a home run by Kubel. It was the Twins' first homer since May 17, a span of 349 plate appearances.

Kubel made sure there wouldn't be another such streak, hammering a 3-and-2 pitch by Gaudin - signed by the Yankees Wednesday morning for a second stint with the team - to deep right for a three-run homer in the seventh that made it 8-2.

The Twins had Vazquez timed from the start. Orlando Hudson drew a one-out walk in the first and Joe Mauer smoked a single to right that got Hudson, running on the pitch, to third. Justin Morneau's sacrifice fly made it 1-0.

The Twins hit three doubles in the second inning, including back-to-back two-base hits by Michael Cuddyer and Kubel to begin the inning, and added two runs to take a 3-0 lead.

The Yankees cut their deficit to 3-1 in the fourth. Brett Gardner singled and went to second with two outs on Mauer's errant snap throw to first on an attempted pickoff. Cano's single to center brought in Gardner, the Yankees' first hit with a runner in scoring position in the series. They had been 0-for-16.

"I'm not sure what pressing means, but there's frustration because we have guys that are able to hit in those situations,'' Girardi said, "and right now we're not getting it done."