The Pen & Pad crowd had Derek Jeter surrounded on the other side of the Yankees’ clubhouse yesterday afternoon. Mired in the worst slump of his short, but brilliant, career, inquiring minds wanted to know every little detail of Jeter’s slide that overshadowed the Yankees having the best record in baseball before last night’s game against the Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium was washed out.
Jeter, the best player on the best team, had five hits in his last 32 at-bats (.156) and was hitting a very un-Jeter-like .268. Seeing Jeter get smothered with questions, Jorge Posada knew exactly what Jeter was going through since the hottest hitter in baseball struggled for much of last year.
While Posada doesn’t come close to Jeter on the popularity level, people wanted to know what ailed him last year. As one hitless game followed another and included more defensive problems, Posada found himself fielding questions to which he didn’t have answers.
Advice flowed from every corner of the baseball world. So much so that Posada attempted to block it out. And through it all, Jeter, his closest friend on the team, kept reassuring him better times were just around the corner. In the car on the way to the ballpark, at post-game dinners and pre-game lunches, the message was the same: stay positive.
Now, with Posada swinging the hottest bat in baseball and Jeter stone-cold due to not being very selective at the plate, the message is going in the opposite direction.
“He kept telling me that it was going to be all right, but you don’t want to listen to anybody when you are going bad,” said Posada, who has 12 hits in the last 17 at-bats (.706) and was third in the AL batting race with a .376 average, second in on-base percentage .466 and second in slugging percentage (.713).
“He told me to stay aggressive in the strike zone and to keep swinging the bat. That’s what he told me last year and that’s what he is doing this year. This game is weird, sometimes it seems like there are 18 guys out there.”
If Jeter is bothered by the added attention for all the wrong reasons, he isn’t showing it. And while he hasn’t badgered Posada for hitting tips, he has gone to him in various ways to change his luck.
Tuesday night he was seen rubbing Posada’s back in the dugout. Yesterday, Jeter dropped a few of his bats in Posada’s locker hoping whatever Posada has that is making him red-hot would wear off on him.
“It was different for him because he wasn’t playing every day and everything builds up because you think you have to get four hits to play the next day,” Jeter said. “He knows he is a good player and if he has a bad day, he is able to forget about it.”
According to Posada, the toughest thing about going through what Jeter is experiencing is the mindset that takes over.
“You don’t want to hear anything, you think you have everything under control, but you don’t,” Posada said. “You listen to everybody but you don’t pay attention.”
Posada isn’t sure if Jeter takes his disappointments all the way to his Upper East Side apartment, but Posada says it’s very difficult to leave it inside the hallowed halls of Yankee Stadium.
“This is your life, there is no way you can get out of here and be all happy when you get home,” Posada said of New York’s most eligible bachelor. “Especially with him alone.”
The differences for Posada from a year ago are many. Handed the No. 1 job, Posada’s confidence has been off the charts since the first day of spring training. Hitting sixth, he has been in a prime RBI slot. And the more the pitchers work with him, their comfort level rises.
And yet on the rare occasion that he goes home hitless – it’s happened seven times in games he started – Posada has something waiting for him to take the sting out of the disappointment that Jeter doesn’t: Jorge, Jr.; born last November 28.
“When you go 0-for-4 and you get home and see the smiling kid, who cares about the 0-for-4?” Posada said.