SAN DIEGO — Derek Jeter’s mobility wasn’t good Friday night in the field or running the bases. However, the shortstop isn’t headed for a third DL stint.
At least not yet but it’s hard to think that Jeter is helping the club moving the way he did Friday night.
“Not thinking about it,” GM Brian Cashman said Saturday when asked if Jeter’s right quadriceps problem had the Yankees contemplating putting Jeter back on the shelf.
After missing the first 3 1/2 months of the season recovering from two fractured bones in the left foot, Jeter came off the DL July 11. He didn’t make it through one game, leaving with the quadriceps problem.
He missed a dozen games and came back July 28 and has appeared in four games since then with stiff orders from Joe Girardi to not push the quadriceps while running the bases.
In Friday night’s 7-2 loss to the Padres at Petco Park, Jeter appeared to be unstable on the right leg on the bases and in the field.
Not running all out from first to third on Robinson Cano’s first-inning single, Jeter decided to slide late with the right leg leading instead of easing into the bag standing up. The slide included the right leg bending under his body.
Jeter fielded a grounder toward the hole in the seventh and again his right leg didn’t move smoothly and his throw to second for a force out was wild.
After the loss in which Jeter went 1-for-4, Girardi said, “I am not sure he is 100 percent, he is trying to grind through it,”
As usual, Jeter is being Jeter about the situation.
“I am all right,” said Jeter, after Friday night’s 7-2 loss. “If I am playing I am not hurt.”
Girardi has started Jeter at short in the first four games back from the DL even though he believes Jeter isn’t at full strength.
Jeter said the play in the hole didn’t include an awkward step. It was more baserunner Logan Forsythe getting to second base faster than anticipated that made Jeter rush the throw which was wild. It was a throw Girardi said Jeter shouldn’t have made. His throwing error came in the second.
As for the slide into third in the first inning, Jeter admitted there weren’t many style points to it. Torn between standing up while not running at full speed or sliding, Jeter took the second choice.
“It didn’t look good,” said Jeter, who appeared to get his right leg caught in the dirt on the slide. “I tried to slow up and decided to slide. I thought it was easier to slide than break it down.
Jeter, who went 1-for-4, stopped an 0-for-9 slide with a first-inning single.
Since hitting a homer and a single in his first game off the DL on July 28, Jeter is 1-for-13 and hasn’t gotten the ball past the infield in 11 of those at-bats. Nine were grounders and two liners.
In Jeter’s defense, a couple of the grounders might have been hits if he hadn’t followed Girardi’s mandate that he not run all out to first base to protect the quad.
With 3,308 hits Jeter needs five to tie Eddie Collins for ninth place on the all-time list and 11 to catch Paul Molitor in the eighth spot.