After Friday night's loss, there are probably plenty of New Yorkers worried about a Bombers collapse.

But none of them are in the Yankees clubhouse.

The Yanks lead in the AL East shrunk to just two games after they lost to the Orioles on Friday, but, afterward, no Yankee seemed ready to hit the panic button.

Nick Swisher said Friday's 6-1 loss was "one bad game" in a season of 162.

"If this was going on 13 weeks, it would be a different thought process," Swisher said. "But if you would have told me at the beginning of spring training that we would have been two games up at the beginning of September, I would have signed up for that."

That's exactly where the Yankees find themselves. Problem is, it's a far cry from the 10-game division lead they held on July 18.

But, publicly at least, that doesn't seem to bother Joe Girardi. He called the Yanks' 2-4 stretch 'a little rut' that any team's bound to run into over the course of a season.

"We've got to find a way out of it," he said in rather measured tones.

If there's anything to be worried about after Friday night, though, it's the Yankee offense.

It seemed like the absence of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez was too much to overcome with Miguel Gonzalez on the mound.

The Orioles righty limited the Yanks to four hits over seven scoreless innings, striking out nine.

His performance reminded Eric Chavez of the last time Gonzalez faced New York. He earned the win on July 30 by allowing four runs on six hits (three HRs) in 6 2/3 innings.

"The guy was just good (Friday), he was dominant," Chavez said. "(His last start) was no fluke."

Chavez and others praised Gonzalez's deceptive fastball and effective array of two-strike breaking balls.

"It says 91 on the board and you would think you'd be able to have a good (swing at it)," Chavez said of the rookie's fastball. "But it didn't feel like that (Friday)."

Swisher, who had been hot of late, was the poster boy for the Yanks' struggles on Friday.

He struck out four times -- three of which came against Gonzalez.

"He just shut us down tonight," Swisher said, chalking it up as "one of those nights" for the Yankees.

And he's right. It's only one of 162, the saying goes. Problem is, it's September 1 and the Yanks are clinging to a two-game lead in the division. Chavez seemed to recognize the Yankees' predicament when he said, "We need to clean up what we're doing in here and take care of what's going on with our play."

But that was the closest you got to a sense of urgency out of the Yankee clubhouse on Friday night.