First baseman Greg Bird is traveling with the team and moving toward taking batting practice on the field which would represent a big step in coming back from surgery on his right ankle.

Bird did tee-and-toss drills with the bat and threw Thursday.

“It felt really good,’’ said Bird, who didn’t want to put an exact date on when he would take BP with the rest of the team.

“We will continue to increase his activities slowly,’’ manager Joe Girardi said before the Yankees’ 5-1 loss on Thursday night. “I think he is going to start doing some light jogging outside on this road trip. And we will continue to progress with him.’’

Out since July 21 with a strained right hamstring, second baseman Starlin Castro is getting closer to beginning a running program.

Also, Aaron Hicks went 1-for-3 with a double Thursday night for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in his second minor league rehab game.

Clint Frazier’s first big league at-bat at Progressive Field was met by silence from the crowd, which was odd because when Frazier was acquired from the Indians last July for Andrew Miller, he was among the organization’s top prospects.

“Andrew put a lot of pressure on me last year,’’ Frazier said of Miller, who helped the Tribe reach the World Series. “I felt I had to live up to him.’’

After his double in the fourth inning, 14 of Frazier’s 25 big league hits have been for extra bases.

With newly acquired Jaime Garcia following Gray on Friday the Yankees will have used nine different starting pitchers in the first 22 games following the All-Star break. They used seven different starters before the break and used their original five-man starting rotation for the initial 59 games of the year.

In the Yankees’ three-game losing streak, they have two hits in 21 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“We have to do a better job at that. Recently, myself included, we haven’t done a good job of hitting with runners in scoring position,’’ Brett Gardner said. “It’s something we have to get better at.’’

Gardner’s 14-game hitting streak was halted when he went 0-for-4 and struck out twice against Corey Kluber. The streak had been the longest active in the majors.

The Yankees were 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position on Thursday, with all three at-bats following Clint Frazier’s double to lead off the fourth inning. Tuesday against the Tigers, the Yankees were 2-for-9 and Wednesday against Detroit, they went 0-for-9.