Yankees struggling at the plate

Kevin Long sounded as if he would prefer to have everyone take a deep breath.

The Yankees, after all, had played only nine of 162 games.

"I've felt good about our offense thus far and I still do," the hitting coach said late Sunday night in Boston after the Yankees were held to two hits in a 4-0 loss to the Red Sox and Josh Beckett. "This isn't any time to hit the panic button just because Josh Beckett came out and threw the ball really well."

The previous day, the Yankees had 13 hits and clubbed four home runs in a 9-4 victory. That gave them 18 home runs in their first eight games. But they will bring a .236 team batting average and a .311 team on-base percentage into Tuesday night's game against the Orioles.

A dissection of the numbers shows a team off to a rough start. The top of the order -- whether it's been Brett Gardner or Derek Jeter leading off -- hasn't hit, and Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada have slumped after productive starts.

But not all slumps are viewed through the same prism.

Had Jeter hit .330 in 2010, a tough start would be shrugged off. But he hit a career-worst .270 and turns 37 in June.

If Posada were not turning 40 in August and hadn't expressed disdain throughout his career for what's become his full-time job -- designated hitter -- his .138 average wouldn't seem as significant.

"I'm really looking for something positive,'' he said, "and nothing is positive right now."

Posada hit three two-run homers in the first four games but went 0-for-15 in his next four (extending his hitless streak to 17 at-bats) and struck out three times against Beckett on Sunday.

"I'm not looking at the numbers," he said. "I'm looking at the at-bats, and it's just one of those things where right now, I'm not feeling comfortable at the plate. So it's just a matter of getting comfortable again."

Jeter, hitting .206 (7-for-34) with no home runs and two RBIs, said "I'm fine" when asked Sunday about his comfort level. But Long told Newsday's Ken Davidoff and another reporter before Sunday's game that Jeter has all but given up on his "no-stride" approach.

On Saturday, Jeter expressed his lack of interest in further discussing the issue of his stride. Long might be nearing that point, too. Before Sunday's game, he said of Jeter's stance: "It's more what Derek Jeter has done for his whole career. If you look at it, even from my standpoint, it looks more like what he's done."

After the game, Long backtracked a bit. "Everybody's talking about abandoning stuff," he said. "That's so far from the truth that I think it's wrong to write. Because he really has stayed to the plan. What you want to do when you step in the box is compete, and that's what he's doing."

Teixeira, who typically starts slowly, hit three three-run homers and a solo shot in the first five games and has gone 0-for-15 in the last four. He said making any judgment on any player after nine games is foolhardy.

"First nine games, you're going to have some funky stats," he said. "You're going to have guys that you say, 'This guy's going to be the next MVP,' and he gets sent down a month later. You're going to have guys that are hitting .050 and then he wins the MVP. It's such a small portion of the season. It's raining, it's cold and you can't get into a rhythm sometimes. I'd love to be able to hit .300 from Day 1, but that's just the way it is. That's the way baseball is."