NEW YORK — The Fourth of July serves as a traditional baseball landmark, one of those natural points of assessment. It probably won't surprise you to learn that, here with the New York Yankees, it has been something so much more.

Yes, back in George Steinbrenner's prime, you could feel the heat turned up in the Yankees' clubhouse on this day. Most certainly, you didn't want to lose on The Boss' birthday. And you'd have a far nicer holiday if you resided in first place.

So go ahead and regard Friday as another failed test for Steinbrenner's club, and for its first-year manager Joe Girardi. Another warning sign in a season where there's little indication of an imminent turnaround.

Only without the old ramifications.

The day after Girardi tore into his players in a meeting that caused the manager to close his clubhouse for 31 minutes, the New York Yankees lost again, 6-4 to the Boston Red Sox, and now they're nine games behind the Tampa Bay Rays and six behind the Red Sox in the American League East.

Johnny Damon might be headed for the disabled list, after crashing into the left-field wall and hurting his left shoulder, and Darrell Rasner should be headed out of the starting rotation, following a subpar performance. Alex Rodriguez delivered a big hit in the first inning, a two-run double, but he left the bases loaded in the seventh, and he was the first player out of the clubhouse following the game, his life once again having turned into a ridiculous soap opera.

In all, it hardly served as a happy 78th birthday for Steinbrenner, who planned to enjoy the milestone in his Tampa, Fla., home with his family.

"We just need to win more games," Damon said. "When that happens, you don't have to have meetings."

Let's talk about the meeting. Just a few days ago, I praised Girardi for his innovation in game managing. For exhibiting trust in his entire roster — not just his veteran favorites, as became Joe Torre's downfall.

But when it comes to a sensitive issue like Thursday night's meeting, Girardi has, to put it very politely, a great deal of room for growth.

When you keep the media out of the clubhouse for such a long time — traditionally, we're allowed in within 10 minutes of the last out — you're going to draw attention to yourself. You're going to get a plethora of questions about the meeting, in various contexts.

Girardi tried to act as though the meeting never happened.

"(Thursday) night was a frustrating loss," Girardi said. "Today was a frustrating loss."

Asked how he would assess the team's play Friday, in light of the Thursday meeting, Girardi responded: "I thought we played hard. And I think we've played hard all year. It just didn't seem to go our way. It's another loss. We need to start winning games."

Only Girardi knows why he wouldn't acknowledge the obvious — that, though the Yankees were outplayed again Friday, they performed much better than in Thursday night's ugly, 7-0 defeat.

It's a positive development for the organization that every Independence Day is no longer Armageddon. Ownership knew and accepted this would be a challenging, transition season.

Yet no one anticipated the poor offense. The Yankees hit 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position Friday, leaving them at a poor. .256 (206-for-804) clip for the season.

"For some reason, we don't know how to score," Yankee general manager Brian Cashman lamented earlier Friday. "An area of strength has been our biggest weakness."

Go ahead and project that something will click for this group, that A-Rod and Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera will remember how to hit with their teammates in scoring position. You've still got to deal with the starting rotation, which has overachieved so far and can't reasonably expect much more from Rasner or Sidney Ponson. And can Mike Mussina match his first half? Yeesh.

The Yankees were in worse shape a year ago at this time; they trailed the Red Sox by 11 1/2 games in the division and the Detroit Tigers by eight games for the wild card. This feels different, though.

July Fourth felt nothing like a wake-up call, and everything like yet another cloudy day in a season that, the Steinbrenner family must hope, at least pays off next year.