ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mark Teixeira spent much of the spring trying to adjust his approach at the plate and hit the ball the other way so teams might think twice about employing a shift against him.
If the first two games of the season are any indication, some of his Yankees teammates may have a similar issue.
Rays manager Joe Maddon has moved his infield into various positions in both of the Rays’ wins, including last night’s 8-6 victory over the Yankees at Tropicana Field.
“You’ve got to deal with it,” manager Joe Girardi said after seeing potential run-scoring hits taken away by the strategy. “That’s why you do spray charts.”
But he isn’t too concerned it will impact his players’ mentality.
“We don’t have a bunch of kids,” the manager said. “We have guys with a lot of experience.”
Especially Teixeira, who smacked what initially appeared to be a two-run single to right in the eighth.
Instead, it went straight to second baseman Sean Rodriguez, who was playing short right. Rodriguez caught it and doubled Robinson Cano off second to end the threat.
“I thought it was over his head,” Cano said. “They usually don’t play that deep.”
With Maddon, there are no rules. He has shown that he’s not afraid to use the shift against anyone.
That includes Alex Rodriguez, who hit two balls up the middle and both of them were fielded by the second baseman directly behind the bag. The second came with him at the plate as the tying run and ended the Yankees’ ninth-inning rally and the game.
“I don’t worry about that,” Rodriguez said after his 0-for-4 night. “Just keep swinging the bat. Keep hitting the ball hard.”
Teixeira said he is more accustomed to it.
“I guess if you spend all winter looking at numbers, you can convince yourself to play it against everybody,” Teixeira said. “Call me crazy, but I’m surprised people don’t play four outfielders sometimes. We’re not there yet, but I’m thinking we’ve gotten to the point where there’s so much information and computers are doing such a great job of showing you exactly where you need to play guys. That’s just the age of baseball we’re in.”
Rodriguez is finding that out.
“It must be the computer stuff,” the third baseman said. “All I can do is hit the pitch and smoke it.”
Asked if he remembered ever seeing a shift against him, Rodriguez said: “I don’t really care about that kind of stuff.”
Then he paused and added, “Pretty interesting.”
“You have to try to find other holes out there,” said Curtis Granderson, who also faced the shift. “You’ve just got to get lucky sometimes. There’s a lot of green out there.”
Granderson also said he would attempt a bunt occasionally to keep third basemen honest, but that’s not something Rodriguez is likely to do.
The center fielder admitted to being surprised about seeing it used against the right-handed Rodriguez.
“I was a little bit,” Granderson said. “But now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him hit too many ground balls to the right side of the field.”
Apparently, he’s not the only one who noticed.