A JACK LOOKBACK
Celebrity Brooklynites recall Jackie Robinson’s first game, season for Dodgers
There’s no sense of panic in the Yankees clubhouse, but Greg Bird’s early-season slump has now grown from a minor speed bump into a topic worthy of concern. The Bombers first baseman went hitless again in Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the Cardinals. He’s now 1-for-29 to open the season with 13 strikeouts and hasn’t hit safely in his last 18 at-bats.
It’s one of the more surprising storylines so far this year, after Bird hit .451 with eight home runs and 15 RBI in 23 spring training games. The 24-year-old has been dealing with a bruise he suffered after fouling a ball off his foot in late March. That injury, along with a spell of food poisoning, forced him to sit out four games from April 8 to April 12. Bird admitted Saturday that the missed contests could have impacted his timing at the plate. But he isn’t here to make excuses.
“I’m missing pitches,” Bird said after going 0-for3 with a walk in the win. “You can’t miss. That’s the bottom line. I got to be better.”
Joe Girardi has no intention of resting Bird to let him clear his head. “He has to try to fight his way through this,” Girardi said. “That’s what we’re doing.”
Girardi said before Saturday’s game he sensed Bird was “frustrated” with his poor start. Bird, however, seemed less frustrated and more determined in the clubhouse later that day. “It’s baseball,” Bird said. “The guys have been supportive. I can hit. I know I can hit. So I just got to keep going, keep working and work through it.” Bird struck out in his first two at-bats Saturday, once with the bases loaded in the first and again in the third with runners on second and third. He showed subtle signs of improvement in his next two plate appearances, walking in the fifth inning before making solid contact on a groundout to second in the seventh. “Maybe that’s the start of something good,” Girardi said of Bird’s last two turns at the plate. Third baseman Chase Headley endured a