Girardi: Javy will have to wins fans over

    Javier Vazquez’s next two starts for the Yankees will be on the road. Perhaps that’s a good thing.
    Yankee fans showed zero patience on Wednesday with the righthander in the first start of the second stage of his pinstriped life. Vazquez, unpopular because of the grand slam he allowed to Johnny Damon in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, was booed early and often while taking the loss against the Angels.
    Vazquez probably didn’t help his cause by saying afterward that it was “unfair” for the fans to jump on his neck in 2010 because of what happened six years ago. That’s like throwing a piece of steak to a rabid mongrel.
But manager Joe Girardi, who was booed in the first month of his Yankee career in 1996 when he replaced the popular Mike Stanley, said it’s just something Vazquez is going to have to deal with.
    “I just think he has to pitch well,” Girardi said of Vazquez, who is 0-2 with a 9.82 ERA. “I think it’s important that he pitches well. I’ve been asked, ‘Is it fair, is it unfair?’ It is what it is. As a player in New York, you have to deal with these type of things. We’ll help him deal with it. Whatever we need to do, we’ll be there with him.”
    Girardi said he didn’t feel accepted by the fans until he caught Doc Gooden’s no-hitter on May 14, 1996. And unlike most athletes who say they don’t hear the fans, Girardi said he did.
    “It was hard,” he said. “I had never really been booed in my life, at least not by my home crowd. It was something that people had discussions with me about just being myself and not getting caught up in what’s going around and that you would earn the fans’ faith and trust in you . . . My wife Kim had a long talk with me, Don Zimmer had a long talk with me. There were a lot of people.”