The LoHud Yankees Blog

About two weeks ago, the Yankees started seeing a lot of breaking balls. They had been hitting a home run, then they started facing curveball pitchers like Gavin Floyd, and the lineup began seeing a steady dose of soft offspeed pitches.

Alex Rodriguez’s recent struggles might have developed one curveball at a time.

“He started getting a little bit out in front, started getting some breaking balls,” hitting coach Kevin Long said. “We talked about this: Subconsciously, what you do is you get bigger with your leg kick because that obviously is going to make you wait on the ball. Bad move. You want to stay consistent with your leg kick, make sure you let the ball travel without actually raising it up.”

Since April 26, the day Floyd carved through the Yankees lineup for eight innings, Rodriguez has hit .170/.204/.191. Just three days earlier he’d gone 2-for-5 with a home run. When Rodriguez got to the stadium in Arlington yesterday, he was almost immediately with Long, in front of a computer screen, watching video of spring training and the first few weeks of the season.

“I always tell him, ‘You’re quick to make adjustments,’ and this one for some reason took a little bit longer,” Long said. “… He’s a click away from being really, really hot again. Today was a huge step in the right direction. I told him if he continues to do what he did today, it’s going to turn around pretty quickly.”

Throughout this road trip, Rodriguez never seemed especially concerned. It was clear that he was working on things, but two weeks wasn’t enough to make him panic.

“I was happy with all my swings (Sunday),” Rodriguez said. “I wish I’d get three or four hits, but the bottom line is we won a game. Overall, my balance was good, my strike zone control was good, and if I do that, there’s going to be a lot of damage.”

Here’s Long speaking after yesterday’s game. He talked mostly about Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, but he touched on Russell Martin, Curtis Granderson and the offense as a whole.

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All around the Yankees clubhouse, Curtis Granderson is surrounded by bigger names and bigger players. Granderson hit 30 home runs in a season once. The rest of the Yankees have done it 32 times.

“I know there are times it’s possible (to hit a home run),” Granderson said. “But even in batting practice when we have home run rounds, I always lose that.”

In that clubhouse of bigger players and bigger names, no one has been a bigger hitter when it counts than Granderson. Robinson Cano is right there with him, but the rest of the Yankees have come and gone. Alex Rodriguez has fallen into a massive hole, and Nick Swisher’s still trying to climb out of one. Russell Martin’s bat seems to have left him, while Derek Jeter just found his.

There there’s Granderson, who this weekend returned to Texas — the site of last year’s much discussed mechanical changes — and hit his league-leading 11th home run of the season. He didn’t hit No. 11 last season until August, just days after Kevin Long reworked his swing with remarkable success.

“I think if you asked Curtis if he expected it to be this good for this long a period of time, he would be very, very pleased with it,” Long said. “I know he feels real good about his swing, where he’s at, and there’s not a whole lot of thinking going on. And that’s what you want.”

This is the player the Yankee envisioned when they traded Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy and Phil Coke more than a year ago. In fact, this is probably beyond what the Yankees envisioned.

“It’s just a matter of looking to drive a pitch,” Granderson said. “Sometimes the ball can get out of the ballpark. Other than that, there really is no key or anything else like that. I don’t consider myself a power hitter by any means. When you measure me up against the other guys like Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Howard, those guys are 30, 40, 50 pounds heavier than me. I don’t know what it is.”

Whatever it is, it’s working, and while the Yankees bigger bats have searched for offensive consistency, Granderson has produced when it’s mattered most.

Associated Press photo

It’s time to go home, and after a seven-day road trip that felt much longer, it’s a good day for an off day. Regardless of the actual time it takes to go from first pitch to last pitch, sloppy games always feel longer, and there were a few sloppy games on this trip: Base-running and fielding mistakes in Detroit, bad starting pitching in the second game here in Texas, head-scratching moments in the first three innings or so yesterday.

Despite winning just three of seven on the road, though, I think the Yankees should feel pretty good about themselves after these 16 games in 16 days (the offense breaking out in the last one helps quite a bit). The biggest concern seems to be the lineup, but the biggest problem there is inconsistency not inability. At one point or another, everyone in the lineup has been hot and cold.* The heart of the order kind of went cold all at once on this trip, and that led to some problems, but it seems premature to get too worried about Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixiera and Robinson Cano (especially considered they’ve also shown flashes of MVP-type performances this season).

A few other things I’m thinking about before I get on this plane:

• Bartolo Colon struggled on Saturday, but otherwise, this rotation is holding itself together pretty well. And that’s without Phil Hughes. Even when these guys have struggled, they’ve given the Yankees veteran-type outings to finally give some much-needed distance. The emergence of Ivan Nova might be the Yankees biggest plus right now.

• Francisco Cervelli cracks me up. He said when he hit his grand slam yesterday, he didn’t realize the bases were loaded until he got to the dugout. I’m sure he knew when he came to the plate — how could he not? — but he completely lost track of that fact while he rounded the bases. Also, he hit the home run with his normal bat, having given up on the pink bat after two at-bats. He said it just didn’t feel right. What ever works, Francisco.

• Joba Chamberlain looked good last night. He wasn’t perfect, but I thought his stuff looked pretty good. That fastball is getting up there at 95, 96 pretty regularly now. I’m not positive, but I feel like that wasn’t the case at this time last year.

• Kevin Long said he started watching video of Russell Martin yesterday and went to work on some minor mechanical tweaks. For reasons Long probably understands much better than I do, Martin’s bat has faded a little bit.

• I heard Robert Earl Keen on the radio while I was driving to the ball park on Saturday. That doesn’t happen too often on my way to the Bronx.

• Speaking of people from Texas, can you imagine how cool that must have been for Lance Pendleton to pitch in that stadium yesterday? He was long gone by the time the media got into the clubhouse, probably off to say hello to his friends and family who had been in the stands. Must have been awesome.

• I’m not sure what role Ramiro Pena plays on this team, but I’m also not sure who else would have been a good call-up candidate. Jesus Montero made no sense if the Yankees truly believe Jorge Posada’s at-bats have been significantly better than his results, and Jorge Vazquez has cooled down. If Eduardo Nunez can keep hitting, he’ll be a solid spot starter at short and third, leaving Pena as the backup infielder on those days. More significant than the addition of Pena — or anyone else — is the loss of Eric Chavez. The bench is much weaker than it was a week ago. Much weaker.

• Let me officially change my prediction from earlier this season: I believe Mariano Rivera will break the saves record this season.

—

* The one exception to the hot-and-cold theory might be Nick Swisher. He’s taking his walks and he’s finally started hitting some home runs, but he hasn’t really gotten hot this season.

Walking into the Yankees clubhouse after this game, Kevin Long’s words were stuck in my head. Just a few days ago, before a game in Detroit, the Yankees hitting coach seemed to suggest something like this was coming.

“(Derek Jeter)’s not hot, he’s not cold,” Long said. “He just hasn’t went through a streak yet. He’s going to get hot and go through a hot streak.”

Jeter had a hit in every game this road trip. He raised his batting average from .242 to .276, and in the past two games he more than doubled his extra-base hits for the season. Last night he drove a ball off the wall in left field, and tonight he went deep to right-center in back-to-back at-bats, once to pull the Yankees within a run, then to put them in front.

“I think we all needed a day like this,” Long said tonight. “It feels good to have Jeet come out and swing the bat the way he did. The other day in Detroit he hit those three balls good. He’s had a couple of games since then that have been really good, and then today was the icing on the cake. We’ll take it from here.”

When Jeter’s first home run got just over the wall in the fifth inning, Joe Girardi turned to Long on the Yankees bench and said, “We’re going to have to talk about him again.” Last week, Jeter grew so tired of discussing his swing and his numbers that he began refusing to discuss those things before games. He would talk at length postgame, but not pregame. He’d already dismissed some of the mechanical changes he’d worked on this spring, and he was trying to get himself comfortable. He decided that discussing it pregame was contrary to that goal.

“When you come here, you’re going to try to not think about things and try to stay positive,” Jeter said. “It’s not the first time we’ve scuffled a little bit, but you still have to have confidence… Sometimes the results can be frustrating, but going in there every day you have to have confidence that you’re going to be able to produce. It doesn’t always work out, but it’s starting to.”

A seven-game hitting streak doesn’t mean Jeter’s out of the woods, and a two homer game doesn’t mean that he’s finishing hitting the ball on the ground, but Jeter’s finally gone through a little bit of a hot streak, and it’s surely taken some of the pressure and — maybe — a little bit of the attention off the Yankees captain.

“You want everything to happen in one day, but it doesn’t always happen in one day,” he said. “It takes a little while. I’m well aware that you have to have patience.”

Here’s Jeter’s postgame interview.

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• The Yankees kind of owed CC Sabathia this win. He’d missed out on so many wins earlier this season, he deserved to sneak a win this afternoon. Sabathia said his fastball command was actually better than last time, but walks and errors put the Yankees in an early 4-0 hole. “Just try to leave it right there, make it so that’s all they get,” Sabathia said. “These guys are going to battle, put together good at-bats. They did, and we ended up coming back.”

• More proof the Yankees offense is making up for those blown win opportunities earlier this season: The Yankees have scored 12 runs in a game three times, and Sabathia’s gotten the win each time.

• Both Sabathia and Francisco Cervelli said his changeup command was a significant problem early. “Just calm down because it was real tough the first inning,” Cervelli said. “And then the wind was too crazy. Changeup crazy. But he made adjustments. Everybody knows who CC is already.”

• Curtis Granderson hit his 11th home run of the season, most in the American League. He didn’t hit his 11th homer last year until August 14, in his 91st game of the season. Tonight’s was his fifth home run against a left-handed pitcher, which matches a career-high for home runs off lefties in a season.

• Jeter facts: His first home run ended a streak of 259 at-bats without a home run. It was the second longest homer-less streak of his career. He went 311 at-bats without one in 1997… This was the second longest he’d ever gone before hitting his first home run in a season. He went 119 at-bats without one this year and 128 without on in 2008… He got his first steal tonight in his 30th game. That’s his second longest wait before stealing a bag. His longest was 38 games, also in 2008… This was his second four-hit game of the season. He had only one four-hit game last year.

• Cervelli hit the first grand slam of his career and the first he could remember since High-A in 2007. “I’m close to Alex now,” he said. “Lou Gehrig and Manny. I’m going there now.”

• How crazy is it that Cervelli, of all people, can rattle off the all time grand slam leaders? You think he’s been eyeing that record and keeping track?

• Girardi said he addressed today’s defensive mistakes with the team. The Yankees played an ugly game early. “I told our club, ‘We have to stop making it so hard on ourselves,’” Girardi said. “We’re a good team, but we’re making it harder on ourselves. We’re capable of playing better.”

• Sabathia had two of the Yankees season-high four errors. On the first one, it seemed like the grass might have played a part in Sabathia being forced to make a tougher than expected play. Not the case. “I was just rushing,” he said. “I had way more time than I thought, I just didn’t pick the ball up.”

• The other two errors belonged to Brett Gardner, who failed to scoop the ball while fielding a single, and Alex Rodriguez, who made a nice play at third and then made a bad throw to first. “That play has to be made 10 out of 10 times,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just kind of an unusual play. I was almost getting ready to throw the ball to a kid in the stands.”

• Rodriguez and Long have been working on his leg kick, which has gotten too high. Both were encouraged by his at-bats today. “I was happy with all my swings today,” Rodriguez said. “I wish I’d get three or four hits, but the bottom line is we won a game. Overall, my balance was good, my strike zone control was good, and if I do that, there’s going to be a lot of damage.”

• Long, Girardi and Jeter all scoffed at the idea that the Yankees are too reliant on home runs. “Come on, this needs to stop,” Long said. ” You score runs however you’re going to score runs. We have guys that can hit the ball out of the ballpark, and because we’re strong and they hit a ball good, we talk about that’s the only way we can score runs. We need to do a better job, yes, with a man on third, less than two outs, of getting the guy in. I don’t care how we score runs. I don’t think anybody in this room cares how we score runs. We need to stay consistent.”

Associated Press photos

Derek Jeter had four hits, including his first two home runs of the season, helping the Yankees get out of Texas with a 12-5 win that brought a positive end to a negative road trip. CC Sabathia labored through six innings and the defense faltered in the early innings, but for once the offense was able to pick up the slack. Jeter’s second home run put the Yankees in the lead in the seventh, and the clinching blow came on Francisco Cervelli’s grand slam in the eighth.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (18-13)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF
Francisco Cervelli C

LHP CC Sabathia (2-2, 2.68)
Sabathia vs. Rangers

RANGERS (18-16)
Ian Kinsler 2B
Elvis Andrus SS
Michael Young DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Mike Napoli 1B
David Murphy LF
Yorvit Torrealba C
Craig Gentry RF
Julio Borbon CF

RHP Dave Bush (0-0, 1.46)
Bush vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 2:05 p.m., YES Network and TBS

WEATHER: It’s a day game in Texas. The weather is exactly as you probably expect: Lots of sunshine with temperatures in the 80s, possibly reaching into the 90s. Wind blowing right to left, though it probably doesn’t have a huge impact with these stands stretching so high on every side.

UMPIRES: HP Mike DiMuro, 1B Andy Fletcher, 2B Tim Welke, 3B Jim Reynolds

HANGING ON: The Yankees open today in a tie for first place in the American League East. They had sole possession the past 24 days (since April 14).

IT’S GOING TO TAKE A HUGE GAME: Derek Jeter tied Willie Keeler last night, moving into 30th place on baseball’s all-time hits list. Jeter needs seven hits to move up another spot and tie Sam Crawford for 29th place. Jeter has 2,956 hits… Alex Rodriguez is 15 RBI away from tying Mel Ott for ninth place on baseball’s RBI list.

CAN’T BLAME THE ROTATION: Pulled straight from the Yankees game notes: Over their last 19 games (since 4/16) Yankees starters have posted a 2.96 combined ERA (124.2IP, 41ER), going 8-5, while the club has gone 11-8…over their first 12 games of the season, Yankees starters had a 5.90 combined ERA (61.0IP, 40ER) while going 4-3 (team went 7-5).

UPDATE, 2:34 p.m.: Not a good start for Sabathia, and he wasn’t helped by a bad throw from Rodriguez and a misplay by Gardner. Two walks and two errors in the first inning. Is that good?

UPDATE, 3:12 p.m.: An inning typical of this road trip: The Yankees got some guys on base, scattered some singles and failed to turn a big opportunity into a big inning.

UPDATE, 3:38 p.m.: The results have been much better the past two innings, but Sabathia’s command is clearly not what the Yankees are used to seeing. He’s already thrown 78 pitches through four innings.

UPDATE, 3:41 p.m.: Jeter’s first home run of the season is his third hit of the game, raising his batting average to .275. He snapped a streak of 259 at-bats without a home run. It’s now 4-3.

UPDATE, 3:47 p.m.: At least that was a productive out by Rodriguez. Is that considered a step in the right direction? Either way, the Yankees have tied the game at 4.

UPDATE, 3:49 p.m.: Cano is 0-for-3 and he’s seen a total of five pitches. This is what he does. When it works, he’s one of the best hitters in the game. When it doesn’t, I have to assume he’s one of the most frustrating.

UPDATE, 4:21 p.m.: This was Joe Girardi’s comment pregame: “Even when CC’s not sharp, we still have a chance to win games.”

Sabathia has not been sharp — and his defense has let him down — but he’s giving the Yankees a chance to win this game.

UPDATE, 4:24 p.m.: Second home run for Jeter. He’s hitting .281 now, and the Yankees are in front 5-4. This is Jeter’s 10th multi-homer game, his first since June of last season.

UPDATE, 4:26 p.m.: And Granderson makes it back-to-back. It’s now 6-4.

UPDATE, 4:55 p.m.: Rangers cut the lead to one in the bottom of the seventh, and now the Yankees have the benefit of a blown call to open the eighth. It’s 6-5.

UPDATE, 5:06 p.m.: Francisco Cervelli grand slam. There was some serious fist pumping going on when he got to first base, and Gardner had to be told that the ball went over the fence, otherwise he was going to run over Posada on his way around third.

UPDATE, 5:08 p.m.: And now a two-run homer by Teixeira. It’s 12-5 in the eighth.

Day game after a night game. Last game of a road trip. The end of playing 16 days in a row. Today was an understandably late report for the Yankees. Some guys just got here about 30 minutes ago.

While the clubhouse was almost entirely empty, equipment manager Rob Cucuzza went locker to locker, adding a pink ribbon to everyone’s jersey, starting with Derek Jeter’s in the far corner of the room.

It’s hard to put too much significance on an early-May game against a non-division team, but a win today would go a long way toward making this road trip a little easier to stomach. A win today would give the Yankees a win in this series, and make the Detroit series seem like a bump in road instead of the beginning of a brutal road trip.

“It’s not what you look for when you leave, but 3-4 is a lot better than 2-5,” Joe Girardi said. “To be able to finish off winning this series would be great.”

Even coming off a so-so outing, the Yankees obviously feel good about having CC Sabathia on the mound. They did score five runs yesterday, but clearly it’s the offense that’s created the most problems and the most concerns the past few days.

“We’ve gotten our share of walks, we haven’t gotten a lot of hits,” Girardi said. “What did we get last night? Six? We just haven’t gotten a lot of hits. I think their approach has been pretty good because we’ve gotten our share of walks, but you have to be able to get the hits and drive people in.”

• Girardi said it’s a standard day-game-after-night-game decision on Russell Martin. “It’s going to be warm today,” Girardi said. “And this way Russell kind of gets two days.”

• Speaking of the heat, Sabathia loves it. “CC likes it hot,” Girardi said. “I was never a fan of heat, but CC seems to like it.”

• Alexi Ogando was supposed to start today, but he’s hurt and Dave Bush will get the start instead. When Curtis Granderson saw the lineup card this morning, he immediately asked why someone named “Bush” was listed as the starter. He didn’t know Ogando had been scratched. Brett Gardner tried to convince him that George Bush was throwing out the first pitch.

• Girardi called Ogando and Bush totally different pitchers. Ogando is a power-sinker guy, and although Bush also throws a lot of sinkers, he mixes in a ton of offspeed stuff no matter the count. “Two different type of guys,” Girardi said.

• Speaking of Granderson, he was trying to decide between two different kinds of pink wrist bands. One seemed slightly larger than what he usually wears and the other slightly smaller. He was seriously trying them on to figure out which felt better. “Game-time decision,” he said.

• Alex Rodriguez got here on the early bus and spent some time watching video with Kevin Long in the corner of the room. He’s struggled this road trip, and in a lot of ways the Yankees lineup is built around him in the cleanup spot. “He’s out of sync,” Girardi said.

RANGERS
Ian Kinsler 2B
Elvis Andrus SS
Michael Young DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Mike Napoli 1B
David Murphy LF
Yorvit Torrealba C
Craig Gentry RF
Julio Borbon CF

Associated Press photos

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Brett Gardner LF
Francisco Cervelli C

The past few days, Nick Swisher has had a brand new pair of New Balance spikes in his locker. They’re mostly black, but the edges and logo are of the brightest pink you can imagine. He got them specifically for Mother’s Day, but he’s not sure he can wear them. Only official gear is allowed to break the uniform rules for today, and Under Armour — not New Balance — is the official footwear of MLB.

“Maybe I’ll rock them during BP,” Swisher said. “If I get fined, we’ll give it to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.”

Goofy sponsorship rules aside, the introduction of the color pink to celebrate Mother’s Day and raise breast cancer awareness is one of the cool if slightly quirky events within the baseball season. Swisher has a pink bat and pink wristbands ready for today’s game, and there are pink bats stashed in lockers throughout the Yankees clubhouse. Even Ivan Nova has one. Has his name on it and everything.

“When you see the pink bats, you definitely know what they stand for,” Swisher said. “They’ve done a great job of going out and branding what that means. Not only raising the money, but getting the word out in general. It’s a fun day. You never really see pink out on a baseball field, so it’s fun when it’s out there.”

For more on Susan G. Komen for the Cure, check out their website.

“Now that I’m a married man and I want to start a family of my own,” Swisher said, “it’s going to be such an honor and privilege to have kids. Your mom is your mom. You only get one of them. Happy Mother’s Day to everybody.”

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom back home in Missouri and to all you mothers out there in Yankee-land.

Associated Press photo of Swisher last season

The Yankees saw Julio Borbon drop a perfect bunt on them last season, and when Joe Girardi went to the mound in the sixth inning, he wanted to make sure his infielders were ready for another bunt tonight. There were no outs and runners at the corners, which meant Mark Teixeira had to stay at the bag to hold the runner. It was the perfect squeeze situation.

“Tex has got to charge hard and try to get there,” Girardi said. “He made a bunt where Tex couldn’t get it and Booney had to get it, and so they scored… They had to execute. It’s a gutsy call with no one out.”

Mitch Moreland was running from third on the pitch, which left Logan no time to get the out at the plate. It was the play that scored the go-ahead run, but the bigger issue was Logan’s inability to retire the two batters before Borbon.

Logan had wiggled out of a tight spot in the fifth, and he was the natural choice to pitch the sixth with three straight lefties coming to the plate. Moreland doubled, Chris Davis singled and Borbon did exactly what he was trying to do. As Logan said, he essentially didn’t do his job against any of the three.

“It’s frustrating because I’m the only lefty in the pen, I need to get my lefties out,” Logan said. “That’s what I’m frustrated about. I don’t want no one to give up on me because I feel good, it’s just a real minor detail that’s kind of a big deal now that I need to correct.”

That minor deal is Logan’s slider, which he said is too loopy. He doesn’t have his hard, tight slider and he needs that pitch. Without it, left-handers are hitting .364 against him this season. He’s let only one of eight inherited runners score — I guess that’s some sort of silver lining — but he hasn’t been the same guy the Yankees saw late last season. And that’s a problem, because Damaso Marte and Pedro Feliciano are on the disabled list and the Yankees system doesn’t offer a proven alternative.

Girardi has been very patient with struggling players, but it’s one thing to stick with a veteran like Teixiera last year or a veteran like Jorge Posada this year. It’s something else to show that sort of faith in a guy without a long track record like Logan.

“It’s different,” Girardi said. “It’s a different feeling because they don’t have the history to tell you that they’re going to get it done, eventually it’s going to turn. But I saw a lot of good things about of Booney, and we have to get him going.”

Here’s Logan, talking a lot about that slider that’s causing him so many problems.

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• For the first time this season, the Yankees saw Bartolo Colon really struggle. Girardi said the problem was one of location. Too many fastballs were left in the middle of the plate. “It was very difficult for me to control (the two-seamer) today,” Colon said. “And I wasn’t throwing it for strikes either.”

• Colon threw only 76 pitches, but with David Murphy coming to the plate with two on in the fifth, Girardi had seen enough and went to Logan, who got out of the jam. “I think it was right to take me out of the game,” Colon said. “Because Texas was hitting every pitch I was throwing.”

• Andruw Jones was pulled strictly because Girardi preferred Brett Gardner’s defense and the Rangers had already burned a lefty. Jones is not injured.

• The Yankees seem to have already seen quite a few squeeze plays this season. Girardi said it was a baseball trend, not so much a beat-the-Yankees trend. “Managers are going back to it,” Girardi said. “I don’t think you’re seeing quite the power that you used to in the game, and it’s a situation that some managers are going to.”

• This was Logan’s explanation of what’s wrong with his slider: “It’s kind of looping in there a little bit. It’s not doing what it’s supposed to do and I’m throwing it too much in the zone as it is and not being able to put away hitters.” He said, the way his slider is now, he has to do a better job throwing it in the dirt when he’s ahead in the count.

• Really nice running catch by Nick Swisher in the fifth. “I told Tex I felt like I ran a half marathon trying to catch that ball,” Swisher said.

• The Rangers announced that Dave Bush will start in place of Alexi Ogando tomorrow.

• Derek Jeter had two hits, trying him with Wee Willie Keeler for 30th place on baseball’s all-time hits list.

• Reggie Jackson was here for whatever reason.

Associated Press photos