TAMPA — Derek Jeter has gone through rough stretches before, but he has never been approaching 40 and coming off a fractured left ankle and multiple related leg injuries that limited him to 17 games a year ago.
Despite all that and the fact he has just one hit in his last 30 at-bats since collecting four in two games on March 6 and 7, the Yankees are confident he’s going to snap out of it.
So are scouts.
“He looks OK,” one NL scout said Sunday as he watched the shortstop go 0-for-3 in a 3-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Steinbrenner Field as his average dipped to .114. “He hasn’t been out there consistently in a long time, so you can’t expect him to be himself yet.”
Jeter did manage to hit a liner to right in the first before grounding out twice.
“I’ve seen him look better and I’ve seen him look worse, even before he got hurt last year,” another scout said.
But the biggest reason people seem to think Jeter will be fine is because he’s Jeter.
“Look, all I know is he’s 19-for-19,” another scout said of Jeter having good years when he stays healthy. “He says he feels good and it doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with him, so it should come.”
And if it doesn’t?
“They have guys they can plug in there like Brendan Ryan and Eduardo Nunez, but even if he’s still struggling on May 1 or June 1, I can see him turning it around,” the same scout said.
As for Joe Girardi, he simply pointed to the time of year, just as Jeter has all spring.
“I’m not really too worried about it,” the manager said. “It is spring training. He missed almost a year and a half. He feels better at the plate. He says his timing he feels is closer. I’m not too worried.”
Asked if that meant he had some level of concern, Girardi said: “No. I don’t get worked up about spring training for veterans. With what he’s accomplished and what he’s done, guys have been through spring trainings like this before. There’s no reason to waste [hits] in spring training.”