SPREADING HIS WINGS
BIRD SNAPS SLUMP, HELPS YANKS WIN 7TH IN A ROW
Greg Bird goes 3 for 3, including a two-run homer, as Yanks stay red-hot with 9-3 victory over Cardinals on Sunday night at the Stadium.
Joe Girardi wishfully had been saying all month that he needs the Yankees’ assemblage of accomplished veterans to produce regularly to take some pressure off of the young players the organization has been touting as its primary selling point since late last season.
Those pleas mostly have been heeded, encouragingly enough, over the season’s first two weeks, with the likes of CC Sabathia and Chase Headley — and even Jacoby Ellsbury and Sunday’s winner Michael Pineda — contributing far more to the Yankees’ 8-4 record thus far than touted up-and-comers Gary Sanchez, who is on the disabled list, or Greg Bird.
But that certainly doesn’t mean that the Yanks didn’t need or expect SOME production out of the latter as soon as possible, especially with Sanchez sidelined for another few weeks with that muscle injury in his upper arm, at the minimum.
Bird finally busted out with three hits and clubbed his first home run of the season on Sunday night – a two-run blast following Aaron Judge’s fan-affected RBI triple in the second inning – while adding a walk to reach safely in all four plate appearances.
His first-pitch no doubter off Adam Wainwright sailed deep into the right-field bleachers to back Pineda’s second consecutive strong outing and to front the rolling Yanks to their seventh straight victory, 9-3 over the Cardinals, following a 1-4 start.
“That’s how it’s supposed to feel,” Bird said after belting his first homer since Oct. 1, 2015. “It felt good. Whatever you want to call it, it’s nice to be back on the board and to contribute to the team, really.
“We’ve been winning games, but feeling like I can contribute to that is nice.”
Even without the blast, Girardi unquestionably made the right move in sticking with Bird and keeping him in the lineup to — as the manager put it a couple of times earlier Sunday — “get to the other side.”
Bird clearly needed to fight his way through the 1-for-26 slump the team’s projected No. 3 hitter had been engulfed by on either side of a four-game absence last week due to a sore ankle and a bout with food poisoning.
“He got off to a slow start, and he’s been frustrated, rightfully so,” Girardi said after the game. “But I thought he swung the bat great tonight and that’s kind of what we saw all spring.”
As Girardi had noted earlier, Bird simply needed to “remain positive and understand that you’ve probably been through worse things in your life. Last year, I would say, was a lot worse than what he’s going through right now. So keep it in perspective and fight through it. And it’s probably not going to be the last time.”
It’s one thing to sink below the infamous Mendoza line (.200) in baseball, or to not hit your own weight — even if you’re 150-pound Ronald Torreyes, who surprisingly happens to lead the team in RBI with 10, all out of the No. 9 slot in the lineup.
Still, Bird wasn’t even hitting the weight of some true “baby” Bombers, entering Sunday’s start with an unsightly .038 mark – albeit now up 100 points to .138.
“I just wasn’t having the at-bats I wanted to have,” said Bird, who might sit Monday against tough Chicago lefty Derek Holland. “For me it’s about simplicity, and swinging at good pitches, and I didn’t feel like I was doing a good job of that.”
Despite missing all of 2016 following shoulder surgery, the double surprise — as Girardi noted – came after Bird thrived late the previous season with 11 homers as an injury replacement for Mark Teixeira and because he’d scorched his way through the Grapefruit League this spring with eight homers (tied for most in baseball) and a stupid .451/.556/1.654 slash line.
“I was somewhat shocked in spring training how locked in he was, considering he really had missed a whole year,” Girardi said. “But he did miss a year, and I haven’t forgotten that.”
Headley is off to a roaring .410 start this year, but the third baseman also played through a similar season-opening funk one year ago. He admits it was “hard enough” for a veteran player to “see those numbers” glaring at him from the scoreboard during every at-bat until he belted his first home run in May.
“He was phenomenal all spring and he’s going to be phenomenal again,” Headley said of Bird. “I’m not worried about him at all.
“If this (slump) happens in July, we’re not even talking about it. But it’s our job as teammates to let Ehim know every day how much we believe in him.” specially with so many veterans hitting and/or pulling their weight, Girardi was fully warranted in letting his starting first baseman attempt to hit his way out of it. Sunday night finally represented a good start to perhaps begin canceling out his dreadful start.
“Everyone in that room has been through a terrible time, or you’re not human, one or the other,” Girardi said. “Sometimes it’s hard when you’re going through that. And it’s us just continuing to show him we believe in him. If I didn’t believe in him, I wouldn’t put him out there.”