Damon: They just took it to us

Johnny Damon sounded more hopeful than optimistic. Funny to hear from a veteran on a Yankee team that was in sole possession of first place in the A.L. East, heading into Fenway Park before Tuesday night’s game against the Red Sox.

Then the Yankees, behind their $82.5 million dollar pitcher A.J. Burnett, went out and lost for a sixth straight time this season to Boston. They are a stunning 0-6 this season against the Red Sox. Even the most optimistic of Red Sox fans could not have imagined this. What gives?

“We’re definitely not happy about that,” Damon said. “We understand it’s baseball. They’ve taken it to us so far this year. We have 13 more against them this season. Hopefully, we’ll mix in a win sometime soon and a lot more as the season progresses.”

Yankee manager Joe Girardi tried to add perspective.

“We’re still tied for first place,” Girardi said. “You have to look at the big picture.”

That’s because if the Yankees look close, they will staring at a dizzying image. The 6-0 streak to start a year is second only to the 14-game run to open the 1912 season, the first year of Fenway Park.

“Obviously, we want to beat them just like they want to beat us. We’re 0-6 and that’s not where we want to be but we had this conversation about Tampa a few days ago and we went out and won two games.”

Two more games for the Yankees to somehow find their mojo.

“They just took it to us tonight,” Damon said of the latest shellacking, a 7-0 loss on Tuesday. “It wasn’t close. The good thing about baseball is you can wakeup tomorrow and have another chance, at least right now. We have two more games here.”

Josh Beckett allowed just a soft single by Robinson Cano in the fourth inning over six dominating innings.

“He was very good,” Girardi said of Beckett. “He’s been very good. He’s on a little bit of a roll. He didn’t walk people. He had an outstanding fastball tonight, a very good curveball and mixed in some changeups. He made it rough.

“He was locating all night long. He was very effective. We even made him work to some point but he just didn’t give up any hits,” Girardi added.

His own guy, A.J. Burnett walked five over 2 2/3 innings.

“It was control and I’ll take the blame for that,” Girardi said. “It’s hard to pitch on seven days. A guy’s used to a routine. We tried to change our rotation a little bit to separate some people and insert Chien-Ming Wang. You can’t have too many expectations on a guy’s command. I think he was strong tonight, too strong, and I’ll take the blame for that.”

“There’s no excuses,” Burnett said. “I was out of whack and I never repeated a delivery the whole 2 2/3 innings I was out there. That’s just skip being skip. There are no excuses. I was prepared, I was ready. I didn’t execute.”

Damon was impressed with Beckett. And even more so with his catcher and Damon’s former teammate Jason Varitek.

“Give Jason Varitek a lot of credit, too, for knowing how to get him there,” Damon said. “It could’ve been a little damp. Varitek knew he had to throw his fastball a little more, then he found his changeup and then once he got some runs, it seemed like his curveball was pretty good.

“I think we felt okay about the way we swung but nothing could find holes today but that also shows you how good they are defensively, how prepared they are and how Beckett was able to have us hit the ball right at guys,” Damon added.