Pineda out to show last start no fluke

The results weren’t changing, but the speeches still stayed the same.

Michael Pineda would walk off the mound after giving away a not her ga me, after a not he r outing with crooked numbers attached to his name. Even as he amassed the worst ERA among all starting pitchers in the majors with enough innings and appeared to be potentially giving away his spot in the rotation — and on the Yankees — manager Joe Girardi and the coaching staff repeated the same comforting — but less and less believable — statement to the right-hander.

“They always tell me, ‘You know you’re Michael Pineda. You know you’re better than that,’ ” Pineda said. “They’d say, ‘Just have fun and work hard and everything’s going to change.’ ”

Finally, the long-awaited change may be coming.

Entering his most recent start in Detroit with a 6.92 ERA, Pineda provided evidence for the optimism with his best start of the season. Earning a no-decision, the 27-year-old allowed only one run in 5 2/3 innings, while striking out eight and walking no batters for the second straight start.

“That’s the Michael that we’ve seen and we know what he’s capable of doing,” Girardi said after the game. “We’ve seen glimpses of it this year.”

With how much the Yankees’ offense has struggled this season, glimpses aren’t good enough. With how much the Yankees expected to get from Pineda in his third season with the team, good wasn’t even supposed to be good enough.

On Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, Pineda (2-6) returns to the mound to make his first home start since May 11 . In his f irst start of the season, on April 6, he picked up a win over the Astros despite allowing six runs, but he hasn’t won at home since, enduring a slide he admits having had trouble handling.

Holding a career 3.99 ERA through parts of four seasons, Pineda wasn’t used to such consistently massive struggles, leaving him ill-equipped to process how he could feel healthy and strong and less powerful than ever.

“When you have bad games and bad games and bad games, your head’s a little [off ], so it’s good to have a start like that and pitch a good game and feel like you can keep it the same,” Pineda said before the Yankees’ 5-2 win Monday night against the Angels. “Mentally, I feel better. I’ve never in my career started a season like that and when you have a bad game, mentally you just want to learn something so you can be better. That’s me right now. I’m just trying to learn something from it and get better and help my career.”