BOSTON – Usually when a new player comes to the Yankees, the weight of the expectations from the fans and (drive by) media is enough to make them press and play below their level of performance.
Joe Girardi and Tino Martinez went through it. The same also goes for Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez and most recently, Mark Teixeira.
Perhaps these newcomers feel as if they have to do something dramatic in order to impress their new teammates. In reality, keeping a simple approach and being yourself works to be the best approach.
It looks like Curtis Granderson is adhering to that memo.
For some, it is never an easy adjustment. Starting out as a Yankee playing your first game and series of your new career in Fenway Park against the Red Sox would be enough for other players to wilt.
Not Granderson.
There is no better way to indoctrinate oneself and put right in the thick of The Rivalry then by coming up with a few big hits in these games.
On this front, Granderson has done just that.
In his first at-bat as a Yankee, he turned on a fastball from Josh Beckett and drilled it into the right field bleachers.
Now, here he was last night leading off the frame in the 10th inning in the rubber game of The Rivalry Act 1, Part 3 against Jonathan Papelbon in a hard fought games and the score tied 1-1.
Granderson in his career had already taken the Red Sox closer deep once was sitting dead red. Any fastball remotely in the strike zone and he would hack.
The fastball came and he was ready, putting a powerful swing into it that had that magical sound.
Papelbon put his head down as the ball went up. Granderson’s eyes raised up, and all JD Drew could was go back and watch it sail out into the right field seats as the Yankees took a 2-1 lead in their eventual 3-1 victory over the Red Sox.
The final stats for the series show him totaling four hits in 13 at bats with two homeruns. While there have been a few misreads on several fly balls, there has been nothing egregiously bad about his defense in center.
All of this amounts to a success first three games for the new Yankee.
Coming off a world championship, Granderson had huge shoes to fill as the team elected to part ways with Johnny Damon and replace him in the outfield with the former Detroit Tigers centerfielder.
Damon could have come back to the Yankees, but at his advanced age and outrageous salary demands, it made sense to move away from him and take advantage of the Tigers making him available for trade.
Rarely is a centerfielder with five-tool ability and under the age of 30 available in a trade. The only conclusion one could draw is that the Tigers have either run into money problems due to the economy or noticed a decline in his performance.
Nonetheless, the Yankees swooped in and made the trade, giving up touted prospect Austin Jackson as part of the deal.
Critics questioned whether Granderson had lost range and ability as a defender in centerfield as late last season he had several lapses, getting bad reads on fly balls, and at times, appearing lost. Add to it the decrease in on base percentage, increase in strikeouts, and extreme inability to hit left-handed pitching, and this did not resemble the player who in 2007 become the only player in history to hit 20 homeruns, steal 20 bases, hit 20 doubles and have 20 triples.
Damon’s toughness and ability to hit in key situations was never in question. We had eight years of evidence from his time in Boston and New York to draw that conclusion.
But now Granderson was coming from Detroit, not a big hotbed for baseball despite their great tradition, into the pressure cooker that is the Yankees. Here, every at bat undergoes extreme criticism and there are never any proverbial “days off”.
However, as we have seen just by the way he carries himself, he is a humble, graceful, eloquent individual who peers garner the highest respect for as an ambassador for the game of baseball. Former teammates and his previous manager, Jim Leyland, raved about the type of person he is both on the field and off, along with the great influence he is in the clubhouse.
On a team that that has converted from a team of mercenaries to a team of high-character individuals, Granderson is the perfect fit. The Yankees can best utilize his talents at the bottom of the lineup to create havoc for opponents.
Remember, he hit 30 homeruns last year while playing half of his home games at spacious Comerica Park. While the Yankees hope he does not get too pull-conscious and attempt to hook balls into the short porch, they would sign up for a repeat of his numbers from three seasons ago.
What they really would sign up for is an ability to hang in against left-handed pitching to not turn him into an automatic out in the lineup (.183 last season), and prove to be a big hitter in the clutch as Damon.
All it took was a few big hits against the Red Sox to say “So far, so good.”
No comments:
Post a Comment