Brian Cashman needs to give stale Yankees a facelift at trade deadline

If during this journey of a million miles to the trade deadline, respectability and contention began Friday with the Yankees putting some of their best feet forward, then so be it. That is regardless of the fact that their 5-4 victory in The Bronx came against a Royals team playing at a 46-116 full-season pace that would be in line for relegation if MLB allowed for it.

The team hit — hit! — against a pitcher with a limited big league résumé. The team made multiple sparkling plays in the field, culminating with Anthony Volpe getting Drew Waters at third base with a throw from the hole on which D.J. LeMahieu applied the tag for the fielder’s choice to end the game. The team did not run into any inexplicable outs on the basepaths.

Against all odds, that team was the Yankees, who had performed amateurishly on the mound, at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths during a 2-9 slide out of a playoff berth, and have seemed to lack the necessities for a course correction.

That is what trade deadlines are made for. This one is coming up on Aug. 1 after another eight games, two more against Kansas City, two against the Mets in The Bronx portion of the Consolation Series — sorry, Subway Series — ahead of three at Baltimore and one against the Rays.

Even if things get worse before they get better for the Yankees (51-47), general manager Brian Cashman will not wave the white flag of surrender. The fact is, all the Yankees have to do is finish with the sixth-best record in the AL to punch their ticket to the autumn cotillion. Remember the good old days, when Joe Torre managed for George Steinbrenner and anything other than winning the division title was perceived as entering through the back door?

Neither does Cashman, neither does Hal Steinbrenner and neither does current field manager Aaron Boone. Times have changed.

The Yankees, though, should point to Aug. 1 as a chance for a reset that would have positive implications for both the long term and immediate futures of this aging team packed with veterans who are almost universally underperforming.

Cashman should approach this as if it were 2016, when the Yankees changed their dynamic by off-loading veterans Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller and Carlos Beltran around the deadline, retiring Alex Rodriguez in mid-August and becoming a younger, more engaging, more exciting and better team.

The deletions corresponded with the additions of Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and Tyler Austin. Luis Severino was summoned from Triple-A. Chad Green was given more responsibility out of the pen. The trajectory had been changed. The Yankees, 59-56 when A-Rod played his final game, went 16-9 immediately thereafter to move within one game of the wild card before they fell out of the race in September.

Now, it is true teams were clamoring for Chapman and Beltran, each of whom were on expiring contracts. Teams were clamoring for Miller, who had two years to go on his deal. Cashman had a hand and it appeared as if he used it, even if the packages gained in return did not measure up to their instant five-star reviews.

The GM’s multiple moves gave the Yankees a facelift. That is what is needed now, under more challenging circumstances.

No team is quite clamoring to trade for fading veteran bats LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo or Giancarlo Stanton, to cite three of the club’s most critical underachievers since Judge left the lineup June 4 with the toe injury he sustained running into the bullpen gate in Dodger Stadium a day earlier.

No one is pounding the door to trade for Michael King or Clay Holmes, who have been featured relievers while making the bullpen one of the Yankees’ strengths.

At the same time, there is no Judge to recall and there is no Sanchez to promote. Are we talking about the need to deal veterans in order to clear space so that 25-year-old Estevan Florial, who previously was designated for assignment, can get major league at-bats after having been dropped from the 40-man roster? Not likely, no.

But the dynamic needs to change. Judge will likely have a timeline for a return after he faces Johnny Loaisiga on Sunday in his first look at live pitching since the injury. That alone will have a positive impact. But more is needed. The Yankees have become stale. The look needs to be changed.

The stands were packed on Friday, 46,000-plus, surely not all drawn to The Bronx by the promise of receiving a Nestor Cortes bobblehead. There was no blowback from Carlos Rodon’s kissy-face episode in Anaheim on Wednesday. Thirteen Years Without a Pennant has not yet quite equated to 15 Years of Lousy Football.

The skies above were clear Friday, but that hardly means there is smooth sailing ahead. The Yankees need a reset, the way they did in 2016. It is on the general manager to make it happen.