Four more Yankees errors get attention

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Another day, another error for the Yankees.

Four of them, bringing their total to nine in the last four games, were far too many for manager Joe Girardi.

He addressed the sloppiness after Sunday's victory.

"We're a much better defensive team than we played this week and our club knows that," Girardi said.

The clubhouse door stayed closed a little longer than normal and Girardi simply nodded when asked if he discussed the miscues.

Alex Rodriguez had the first of the quartet, a high throw to Mark Teixeira after fielding Ian Kinsler's grounder to lead off the Rangers' first. Later in the inning, Brett Gardner booted Mike Napoli's RBI single, allowing two runners to advance.

Starter CC Sabathia committed two errors -- one in the fifth when he failed to cleanly pick up Napoli's dribbler near the first-base line, and one in the sixth when Julio Borbon's chopper banged off his glove.

There was also an ugly-looking play in the fifth when David Murphy hit a slow roller that Sabathia fielded and ate. No one was covering first as first baseman Teixeira also had come in on the ball and second baseman Robinson Cano said he could not have made it to first.

A-Rod described Kinsler's ball as "a tricky one," as it started in foul territory, then jumped fair. He didn't mean it as an alibi.

"That was a ---- throw," Rodriguez said. "That play has to be made 10 out of 10 times . . . We're looking to get back home and put some of this sloppy play behind us."

Slumping A-Rod

Rodriguez said it was "huge" seeing Derek Jeter's day (4-for-6, including two home runs and three RBIs) because "he's been swinging the bat great," of late.

That has not been the case for A-Rod, who went 1-for-4 to finish the road trip 6-for-26. Hitting coach Kevin Long said the pair before the game looked at video of Rodriguez in spring training when he hammered the ball consistently. One mechanical adjustment they worked on was lowering a leg kick that has gotten too high.

"I was happy with all my swings today," A-Rod said. "You wish you got three or four hits but the bottom line is we won a game. I thought overall, my balance was good, my strike-zone control was good and if I do that, I can do a lot of damage."

Martin gets a break

With the temperature at 86 degrees for the first pitch -- and the Yankees finishing a stretch of 16 games in 16 days with a similar stretch of 16 straight days of games after a day off Monday -- Girardi chose to give starting catcher Russell Martin a day on the bench, a fortuitous move as it turned out.

His replacement, Francisco Cervelli, hit a grand slam in the Yankees' 12-5 win.

"It's still a long season," Girardi said. "I want [Martin] to catch a lot of games, but you try to be smart in the days off you give him."