Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff

MLB

How Jeter always grabs the spotlight — and not always for the good

BOSTON — It is, to steal and tweak an old “Seinfeld” phrase, The Summer of Derek.

The impending retirement of Yankees captain Derek Jeter promises to hold New York’s attention no matter how low his team sinks in its quest to avoid a second straight October vacation.

Though Jeter may be just a shadow of his prime self as he rounds his final lap at age 40, the guy still manages to draw our focus on a daily basis.

Take Saturday, for instance. With deeds first bad and then quite good, Jeter put himself on center stage yet again, helping the Yankees stop a two-game losing streak with a 6-4 victory over the retooling Red Sox at Fenway Park.

“We feel as though we have a hot streak coming,” Jeter said of his Yankees, who raised their record to a modest 56-53. “But we have to go out and do it.”

Jeter, of course, doesn’t want to end his glorious career without one more shot at a World Series title. Moreover, if the Yankees miss out, as appears the most likely scenario? That would mean that Jeter’s final postseason appearance occurred when he broke his left ankle in Game 1 of the 2012 American League Championship Series.

On Saturday, Jeter hurt the Yankees’ slim chances of pulling off the comeback. Until he helped them even more.

To lead with the positive, after rookie Shane Greene dug the visitors a 3-0 hole in the second inning, in part by giving up a ginormous, two-run homer to Mike Napoli that soared over the Green Monster seats and appeared to land somewhere in Maine, Red Sox rookie starter Allen Webster started the bottom of the third by walking eighth hitter Martin Prado, ninth hitter Francisco Cervelli and leadoff man Brett Gardner to load the bases. That brought up Jeter.

Asked his approach when he comes up in the wake of three straight free passes, Jeter responded, “Get a pitch inside and flare it over the first baseman’s head.”

That was, as the kids write on Twitter, “#Sarcasm.” For Jeter poked an 0-and-1, two-seam fastball over Napoli’s head that landed about a foot fair. P

erfectly placed, it scored both Prado and Cervelli and allowed Jeter to reach second for a double, cutting the Yankees’ deficit to 3-2.

They proceeded to plate two more runs in the inning, with Jeter trotting home from third base on Carlos Beltran’s two-out single to left field to give the Yankees a 4-3 edge they would never return.

“He made a good pitch,” Jeter said of Webster. “I was fortunate. I just tried to hit the ball the other way. The ball was probably in off the plate, but I stayed inside. Sometimes you’re lucky. I’ll take luck.”

For sure, if Alex Rodriguez had hit the same ball in the same scenario, a pigeon would have swooped in and carried it away, and home-plate umpire Ted Barrett would have ruled it a triple play, with Bud Selig’s backing.

Earlier in this contest, however, Jeter added to his collection of surprising 2014 senior moments. After Gardner started the game with a walk, Jeter reached base when Boston third baseman Brock Holt couldn’t field his grounder cleanly and threw late to first. Jacoby Ellsbury followed with a line drive to short center field.

Jackie Bradley Jr., the Red Sox’s supremely athletic center fielder, snared the ball rather easily and, seeing Jeter so far toward second base, threw to first for an easy, 8-3 double play.

A promising inning suddenly transformed into Gardner on second and two outs, and Mark Teixeira put the frame out of its misery with a fly out to right field.

“Initially, he broke back,” said Jeter, who added an infield single to raise his slash line to .278/.331/.337. “And then I was sort of in No Man’s Land. If it falls in front of [Bradley], I don’t want to get thrown out at second. But he caught it. I thought initially it was going to drop in, but obviously I was wrong.”

For a guy whose brand is largely about “Playing the game right” in every sense of the term, Jeter has surprised with his sudden slew of mental errors.

In a June 2 loss to Seattle, Jeter failed to realize a Kyle Seager hit to the corner was fair and let Seager hustle out a triple.

And in a June 24 game at Toronto, Jeter committed a pair of mental miscues on defense as the Yankees proceeded to lose to the Blue Jays.

So there has been a little more of a roller coaster to Jeter’s game this season than that to which we are accustomed. Yet there have been enough highs to mitigate the lows.

Thanks to Jeter trumping his low with a high Saturday, The Summer of Derek owns a slightly better chance of extending deeper into autumn.