NEW YORK — Joe Girardi is satisfied that his team was able to stay in first place while center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury and left-handed closer Andrew Miller were on the disabled list.
Now the Yankees manager is even more pleased that both returned to the active roster.
“We’ve been able to play pretty decent ball over that time,” Girardi said before Ellsbury and Miller returned in Wednesday’s 5-4 win over the Oakland Athletics. “Obviously you would have liked to (have) won more games. I think every team could (say) that, but when you lose two impact players like that, they’re not easy to replace.”
On Wednesday, Ellsbury went 1-for-4 and also made three catches in the field. The one hit was him legging out an infield single in the seventh.
Miller’s night was a little more eventful. He needed 30 pitches to get through his first outing since June 9 but eventually notched his 18th save.
Before getting the save, Miller gave up a two-run home run to Oakland shortstop Marcus Semien on an inside fastball. He said that he might have thrown a different pitch if New York did not hold a three-run lead at that instance.
“I felt really crisp, I felt really good,” said Miller, who threw 22 strikes and had a fastball that hovered in the 94 and 95 mph range. “He hit a pitch that I wanted to throw. I just threw it in the wrong place.”