Before a pitch had been thrown in Saturday’s game, Joe Girardi had disappointed many fans by deciding not to start Derek Jeter.
It is part of the ticket-buying Russian roulette of this season for Yankees fans. Many are purchasing in advance in hopes of seeing the great shortstop play one last time, with no guarantees he will.
Girardi sees the big picture. This isn’t The Rolling Stones playing shows here and there over a period of time to allow the elderly group to make all the gigs. Jeter is nearing 40. He has that twice-fractured ankle in his recent past. The Yankees’ manager is trying to find a way to get that player through 162 games in 183 days plus — he hopes — October. The Yankees’ 12th game in 12 days was a day game after a night game, so for the second time this year Girardi benched the icon.
In a statement full of reason and short on diplomacy, Girardi said, “I wasn’t hired to put on a farewell tour.”
The positive for Girardi, his team and their fans was that while one institution was absent another was present in the strongest form — The Bronx Bombers were very much in the House (that Ruth Built).
Jeter watched as five homers were hit toward the short right-field porch. That produced all the Yankee runs in a 7-4 triumph over the Red Sox.
“We are going to hit home runs,” Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long said. “Anyone who thought we were not going to hit homers, they were crazy.”
The Yankees hit no homers in their first five games of 2014 (169 at-bats), which was like “The Tonight Show” opening without a monologue. Returning home has helped enliven the power bats. In the four games before Saturday, the Yankees had six homers in 135 at-bats.
Then they hit five homers in a game for the first time since April 9 of last season and for the first time in The Bronx since Aug. 17, 2012, against the Bobby Valentine Red Sox.
With all the fanfare that surrounded the importation of Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankees spent most of their time and money in the offseason trying to reboot an offense that fell apart physically and statistically last year. They did think about diversification: How Jacoby Ellsbury could team with Brett Gardner for speed. How Carlos Beltran and Brian Roberts could join Mark Teixeira to restore a switch-hitting balance to the lineup.
But, again, these are The Bronx Bombers — and it is possible that has never been more important than now. For we are in an age of more power pitching than ever and strikeouts are soaring. We also are at a time in which hit-robbing shifts are employed not just on near every batter, but often on each pitch. Fewer balls in play because of the strikeouts and more being turned into outs equal you better being able to hit homers if you want to score.
“The shift is going to take away a lot of points on batting averages,” Long said. “Base hits are dying. But a shift can’t stop a homer and here is one thing you know about the homer — each one is worth at least one run.”
Consider the Yankees were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, yet scored seven runs. The one hit was a two-run homer by Brian McCann. That was one of the Yankees’ three hits in 12 at-bats with men on base. One of the others was a two-run homer by Alfonso Soriano.
The Yankees managed just one homer in 111 at-bats over four starts against John Lackey last year, but hit four in 26 batters Saturday. Two were by McCann. Before those he was hitting .162 without even an extra-base hit and — despite McCann’s words to the contrary — Long sensed “he needed that to feel good.”
“The first one is always the toughest,” Long added. “Look how quick the second one came. That was not a coincidence.”
Beltran also homered and hit the top of the right-field wall for a double in front of McCann’s second homer. And Kelly Johnson added a solo shot in the eighth. In recent years, when filling out their roster, the Yankees have emphasized lefty pull hitters who get the ball in the air to capitalize on the right-field porch. Think Raul Ibanez, Eric Chavez, Travis Hafner. Johnson fits that category and already has three homers.
This is the Yankee identity. Indeed, this is the year in which they say goodbye to their Captain. But in every year, they are aiming to honor their legacy as The Bronx Bombers.