Bronx, N.Y., April 26 – Well, the White Sox brought their nonwinning and nonhitting ways to the Bronx two days ago, to doubly unfortunate effect on the home team. The Yankees have managed seven hits through two games, scoring finally in Tuesday night’s game because two of the hits were home runs. And the gut-wrenching part of this second straight loss is, that should have been enough.

Phil Humber blanked the Yanks through seven on one hit in his first start Monday; veteran righty Gavin Floyd was almost as dominant Tuesday. He dispatched the Yankees on eight pitches in both the fifth and sixth innings, even though the home team had a hit in each, worked a 10-pitch eighth inning, struck out 10, and moved into the top of the ninth inning having thrown just 98 pitches.

The Bombers had some pretty fair starting pitching of their own, of course. A.J. Burnett allowed a run on three hits Monday, but rookie Ivan Nova may have been pitching for his spot in the rotation Tuesday, off two straight ineffective starts and a rough – and losing – inning in relief a week ago. But Ivan made his manager, the White Sox, and 40,000 experiencing a rare nice night in the Bronx believers this night. Nova had a reputation of crumbling, after early success, once opposition batters reached base against him in 2010, but he worked one out into the seventh this night despite having at least one runner reach against him every frame but the second.

Ivan, who notched two of his three strike outs immediately following base hits and the other an out removed from a single, allowed five hits, two walks, and a run, and left the game on pace for a win. The 54/38 strikes/balls ratio evidenced too many off the plate, as did just 13 of 25 first-pitch strikes, but relying almost exclusively on a mid-nineties fast ball and an effective 80-mph curve, he pitched one out into the seventh inning for the first time in his career. When he issued the second walk after Eric Chavez, in at third for the DH’ing Alex Rodriguez, retired Alex Rios on a bouncer right down the line, David Robertson got out of the inning with a strike out and a grounder to short around a single that sent the tying run to third.

But the wheels came off when setup man Rafael Soriano came on to pitch the home eighth. One month into the 2011 season is a little too early to see if the Yanks will be getting what they paid for when they signed 2010 saves champ Soriano, but indications are not good. He took a 1-0 deficit and made it 2-0 Monday, allowing a stolen base, hard single, and walk once the fluke popup single that landed behind the mound. But Tuesday was worse. A one-out hit by pitch and Paul Konerko home run handed the lead to the White Sox. Sori obviously had trouble with Greg Gibson’s strike zone as the inning continued with a walk and a single, but that was a pointless argument. Rafael had failed to hold the Sox well before he and Gibson got into a staring match about the strike zone.

The Yanks had their 2-1 lead on line homers to right by Robinson Cano in the second and Brett Gardner in the fifth, the only two hits Floyd allowed to that point. Derek Jeter had the other two. His hard single leading off the sixth was immediately removed on a double play; his swinging bunt leading off the ninth ended Floyd’s night. It started a final inning that was thankfully night and day to the futile exercise they put up Monday. Curtis Granderson bunted the tying run to second, and Mark Teixeira walked, with pinch runner Eduardo Nunez replacing him as the potential winning run.

The Yanks had their chance, with Rodriguez and Cano due up. Sergio Santos replaced Mark Thornton following the walk, fell behind A-Rod 1-0, got a strike, then missed. Speedy Chisox sub Brent Lillibridge had replaced right fielder Carlos Quentin as a baserunner in the eighth, and actually scored on Konerko’s big home run, but he was about to play a much bigger role. Alex turned and drilled the next pitch toward the wall in right, but as thousands of fans leaped to their feet, the right fielder snagged the ball with a lunge at the wall. Two pitches later Cano smacked a sinking liner the same way, but Lillibridge charged and dove, coming up with the catch and quashing all hopes. Either play was a game-saver on its own; that he had pulled off two straight put this one in the realm of the Sir Launcelot, Merlin, and Excalibur.

But one team’s miraculous play is another team’s disaster. And although the Yanks did everything right in the bottom of the ninth, it was just a second crushing defeat in as many days. Unfortunately, failure is in the nature of this game.

Bernard Malamud, author of The Natural, would have turned 97 on this day. If you’ve seen the Robert Redford movie of the book, you’ve experienced what it’s like in a world, and a year, and a ballpark, where A-Rod’s and Cano’s liners fall in, or Roy Hobbs clears the fence, and the home team wins. The Yanks did it again and again in their new pleasure palace just two years ago. But if you read the book, you get a sense of the other side, the more real baseball side. There was no lightning or thunder in the Bronx Tuesday night (though sadly the weather going forward for the remainder of the last April Yankee home stand may hold some of that in store). Hopes rose; otherworldly forces clashed; hopes were dashed.

It was a Natural Disaster

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!