Curtis Granderson hasn’t been very good this year. But he just might be the luckiest player in the majors.
If he were playing for the old owner in his prime or in the old stadium or for a team that did not have the majors’ best record, Granderson would know what hell in baseball feels like. Instead, the highest-profile Yankee acquisition of the offseason has essentially skirted criticism and boos despite having the kind of season that once made Steve Kemp’s stint as a Yankee short and bitter.
It is just another reminder that this is a different time and place. Hal, not George, Steinbrenner runs the Yanks. So the owner’s box is quiet. There is no impetuous Boss reacting furiously to one empty at-bat after another, no public chastising of the former Detroit center fielder as Tiger Won’t.
The new Stadium lacks the overhang, which brought the most passionate supporter/critics of the team to claustrophobic closeness. Instead, proximity belongs to the wine-and-cheese set that can afford to sit in the lower bowl, and can watch Granderson strike out in the biggest at-bat of a game — as he did yesterday — without much commentary.
“The noise from the old Stadium to the new Stadium is gone,” hitting coach Kevin Long observed.
What lingers is a strong team that still has the majors’ best mark even after a 2-1 loss to Boston. However, these Yankees do have their flaws, perhaps none bigger than a starting center fielder that they cannot hide. Granderson has brought little of the hoped-for power and energy that moved the Yankees to give up three youngsters, including Austin Jackson, in a three-team trade.
After Granderson generated 30 homers last season playing home games in huge Comerica Park, there were thoughts he might reach 40 this season. Instead, he has 10. His average is down to .240, his OPS to .724, which if it continues would represent a third straight season both numbers dropped and also a stark similarity to Kemp’s .241/.718 Yankee debut in 1983.
For his part, Granderson has a Nickelodeon persona, never publicly showing anything but a smile and a positive bent. So he is unrelentingly upbeat, delusional or working on an acting career.
“I never get too frustrated or too high,” Granderson said. “I still think the season is about where you finish and it’s not over.”
But Granderson is offering nothing to suggest the final third of the season will be different. His problems against lefties (.206) persist. And, just as disturbing, is that Granderson cannot gain traction. A game of good at-bats, such as Saturday’s, has nothing to do with Sunday or yesterday. He has failed to offer any sustained excellence.
“He’s had a tough year until this point,” Long agreed. “But we are not going to give up. He works his tail off. There have been occasions in which I have said, ‘Here it comes,’ but the day-in, day-out consistency has not been there.”
The Yankees already have tried de-emphasizing Granderson; obtaining Austin Kearns, for example, to provide more righty options. But with Brett Gardner also struggling, manager Joe Girardi started Granderson vs. southpaw Jon Lester and batted him ninth. But a huge at-bat found Granderson in the seventh, Yanks down 2-0, bases loaded, none out. Granderson struck out.
He led off the ninth against Jonathan Papelbon, Yankees down 2-1. He had led off the 10th inning in Fenway on April 7 with a tie-breaking homer against the Boston closer, one of the few high notes of this disappointing year. But here he struck out again.
“I haven’t been able to be the guy, but at the same time, on this team, we don’t necessarily need that type of guy,” Granderson said.
Maybe. But Granderson was brought here to be more than an observer to the excellence of others, certainly more than a ninth-place-hitting detriment. He has sidestepped the boos and criticism. But the biggest games are still to come. Granderson will either rise up and prove an asset or learn that even with the old Stadium and the old Boss gone that this is not the place you want to debut as an abject failure.
joel.sherman@nypost.com