For eight innings Wednesday night, Giancarlo Stanton was having another night to forget.
Although he had singled in his second at-bat of the night, he had also struck out twice with runners on base. The second time it happened, with a runner on first and the Yankees trailing the Seattle Mariners by 5-3 in the seventh inning, the Yankee Stadium crowd reacted more with indifference than vitriol, almost as if the result had been expected.
It seemed, at the time, as though the Yankees had squandered their last real chance to complete a rally in a game in which they had trailed, 5-0, at the halfway point.