BOSTON – Alex Rodriguez is the tortured genius at the center of the Yankees’ soap opera. He mixes extreme talent with gnawing insecurity and suspect sincerity.
The cast has a moody right fielder named Gary Sheffield, whose motivations revolve around money. The projected ace is an antisocial, 6foot-10 fading star.
The main story line involves an epidemic that has swept through the ranks, leaving fractured bones, shredded shoulders and a mystery disease besetting Carl Pavano. Looming above all of this is the aging Boss, who is hardly seen any more and yet still has a presence felt daily.
Is there any wonder with this all going on that Derek Jeter – a leading man for the past decade – could be hitting .350 and hardly seem part of the script? This is Derek Jeter, not Kevin Reese. This is a matinee idol, the captain, the guy in more commercials than detergent.
He is having the best first-quarter season of a Cooperstowntinged career, but as these Yankees turn, in the current days of their lives, he somehow has become a famous supporting actor.
“I don’t care,” Jeter said. “We’ve had a lot of stories here, especially about injuries.” The Yankees have been General Hospital. Joe Torre determined last night he had to sit Johnny Damon and his chip bone in his right foot despite a rubber game at Fenway Park. Melky Cabrera became the leadoff hitter. Jorge Posada is scheduled for an MRI today to assess the damage to his left hamstring tendon.
Kelly Stinnett started. So did Terrence Long, who was unemployed earlier this month. In the daily revolving door that is the Yankees roster, Reese was out and Matt Smith was back in.
The plot with the Yankees has been so about surviving in this perilous period that Jeter pretty much has sneaked up on 2,000 career hits. He was at 1,998 when last night’s game began.
“It’s nice,” Jeter said of the milestone.
“But it’s not like I’m sitting down and saying, ‘I can’t wait for my 2,000th hit.’ ” Asked if any number would mean anything to him, Jeter smiled and said, “If we win a fifth championship, that will mean something.” This is Jeter’s secret weapon, his sixth tool. He has a great skill at simplifying his life. He is pretty much the opposite of A-Rod, who if anything, paralyzes his skills by knowing too much, by intellectualizing each facet of his life, by thirsting for knowledge. Rodriguez can probably tell you how many homers per at-bat he needs the rest of his career to reach 800 homers. Jeter essentially is interested in the final score of his team’s games.
Jeter is respectful enough to attend every pre-series hitters’ meeting, but smart enough to know himself and not pay that much attention. Unlike A-Rod, who is guessing along with every pitch, which leads to him looking baffled at so many called strikes when he guesses wrong, Jeter thinks every pitch is going to be a fastball, unless the opposing pitcher is Tim Wakefield. He lets his elite skills work, trusts in his reactions.
While so many of his teammates in this soap opera-ish season have suffered setbacks mental and/or physical, Jeter has been a metronome. He is hitting .352, and it climbs to .375 with runners in scoring position. His confidence at times like this is needed, his endless optimism is a bonus.
“I think consistency is the biggest thing in the game,” Jeter said.
He is consistent, and that includes consistently boring. It is not in his personality to strain to please. He is accommodating, but not a guy who will go out of his way to do it. He regularly has a smile, but shares few jokes. He is most interesting playing baseball, yet in this season of baseball excellence that is not enough to make him a main attraction.
Derek Jeter is hitting, of all things, a quiet .350 as the Yankees’ soap opera plays out all around him.
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Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is off to his best start since 1999, when he set his career highs in home runs (24), runs batted in (102) and average (.349). Here’s a comparison of the April and May stats from 1999 and this season for the Yankee captain, who was third in the majors with a .352 average and had 1,998 career hits going into last night’s game at Boston:
— G AB R H HR RBI BB SO SB AVG
2006 44 176 35 62 5 34 27 29 8 .352
1999 49 191 42 71 9 33 32 30 7 .372