Holliday making adjustment to first
The Yankees thought so much of playing Matt Holliday at first base this season that he never played there during spring training — only taking some grounders at the position using Greg Bird’s glove.
Even last week, manager Joe Girardi put him there only as a way to get him in the lineup in National League parks where he couldn’t be the designated hitter.
But Friday, Holliday started at first at Yankee Stadium — in place of the struggling Chris Carter, while Jacoby Ellsbury served as the DH and Aaron Hicks was in center. Holliday, who went 1-for-4, made a solid play on Carlos Beltran’s sharp grounder in the seventh inning of the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the Astros on Friday at Yankee Stadium.
Asked how he felt playing first, Holliday grinned and said: “I guess as comfortable as you could possibly feel without playing much. It takes a little while to get used to.”
But that’s what happens when Bird and Tyler Austin are lost to injury — and Carter is showing why he was left available on the free agent market until mid-February, despite leading the National League in home runs a year ago.
Carter has been mostly dreadful all season, with just a .579 OPS entering Friday night, but he has been even worse lately, going 1-for-15 with nine strikeouts in his previous six games.
Still, Girardi said he believes Carter can turn things around.
“You go by the track record and by the people who have seen him a lot more than me,” Girardi said. “Obviously, he is going to hit one of these streaks.”
For now, the Yankees are left to try whatever they can to make up for the loss of Bird, who remains out indefinitely with a bone bruise in his right ankle he initially suffered at the end of spring training and has sidelined him since May 2.
In the meantime, the Yankees are left with Carter, who has homered just once in 68 plate appearances this season and Holliday, who entered 2017 having started just nine career games at first.
It’s an adjustment Holliday continues to wrestle with.
But Holliday admitted he probably would have approached spring training differently if he knew this was going to happen.
He said he “assumed” he didn’t get work at first “because I wasn’t going to do it during the season.”
Injuries and ineffectiveness have altered those plans.
“Circumstances have changed,” Holliday said. “In hindsight, maybe I’d be a little bit more comfortable if I’d been there in the spring.”