Joe Girardi described the top of his order last night — Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher — as a one-night stand.
Derek Jeter was given a rest day, and Brett Gardner already had hit (or not hit) his way toward the bottom of the lineup. So, Girardi told me, this was not a top-of-the-order experiment. He simply looked at what was available and came up with a 1-2 of Granderson followed by Swisher.
Of course, late in spring training, Girardi frequently downplayed the relevance of batting Gardner leadoff — and then began the year with Gardner hitting leadoff.
And when I asked if Granderson/Swisher could become a more permanent duo atop the lineup, hitting coach Kevin Long didn’t dismiss it, saying, “It’s something to look at.”
Girardi naturally wants to avoid this topic, because it involves the ever-delicate subject of dropping Jeter to the bottom of the lineup. It is easy to move an unproductive Gardner down. But it will be much more unsettling to a team and its fan base to do the same with an unproductive icon, especially an unproductive icon inching toward 3,000 hits.
But if Swisher gets his act together and Jeter doesn’t, well, isn’t winning the key, not appeasing icons?
Yankees GM Brian Cashman was emphatic in spring — without naming names — that the best hitters should bat atop the order, so they can hit most often.
Jeter was not touched through his 2010 struggles, a bow to his status. Will the Yanks really go through another year refusing to notice the emperor has no clothes or, more apt, the captain has no clout?
Because the top of the order sure looked tremendous last night as the Yanks clobbered the White Sox 12-3. Swisher stirred, ending an 0-for-19 drought with three hits, including his first homer, a walk and four RBIs.
Granderson walked, tripled and drove in two runs. In all, the top two that Girardi said he is not experimenting with went a combined 4-for-7 with four runs, six RBIs and two walks.
Eduardo Nunez started in Jeter’s place and did contribute two hits, a walk and a stolen base. However, he also committed two errors, leading to three unearned runs against CC Sabathia.
Jeter lacks range, but offers steadiness. Hit it to him and it is an out. So this is not about pushing Jeter to the bench. But how many plate appearances does he get — on top of last year’s struggles — to show he deserves to keep hitting high in the lineup?
He has supplied zero to the Yanks’ supposed over-reliance on homers. But the truth is, the homer barrage has saved the Yanks from falling toward the bottom of the sport in runs scored.
If the originally conceived 1-2 of Gardner and Jeter had reached base at a rate the team envisioned, then the Yanks would be scoring in more diverse ways.
Instead, they went into yesterday with 39 homers, eight more than any other team. They had produced 71 of their 114 total runs via homers. That is 62.28 percent. The next-highest percentage was the 47.67 percent of the Orioles.
The hitting struggles of Swisher and Jorge Posada also hurt. But the top-of-the-order inadequacy has been more debilitating. Because the low on-base percentages from those spots has meant a lack of threatening speed on the bases and fewer RBI opportunities for the 3-4-5 of Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano, who were hitting a combined .347 with men on base.
Before White Sox starter Edwin Jackson’s walk-fest yesterday, opponents had been challenging Yankee hitters more. Yes, that has led to homers. But it keeps down walks, pitch counts and hitter’s counts.
So Gardner and Jeter must do damage swinging the bat. Gardner had struggled to get into hitting counts like he did all of last year, but he did so yesterday and produced a double, homer, walk, steal and three runs. He is hitting just .169, but actually has three homers (three more than Jeter), and had as many extra-base hits (two) last night as Jeter has this year.
There just has yet to be life in Jeter’s bat. Of his 22 hits, seven are of the infield dribbler variety.
So last night Jeter rested, Gardner hit eighth and Granderson and Swisher excelled from the 1-2 spots. Maybe it was a one-night stand. Or maybe it was a preview.