Brass feels Bird on cusp of breakout

Flash back to early March, and it seemed Greg Bird was on his way to stardom.

The 24-year-old was tearing up the Grapefruit League, hitting .451 with eight home runs. But his dreadful start to the regular season, with just one hit since April 19, against the White Sox, has made it all a distant memory.

Nevertheless, general manager Brian Cashman said the Yankees are not thinking about demoting their struggling first baseman.

“I feel like he’s coming through it,” Cashman said Sunday before the Yankees capped a three-game series with a 7-4, 11-ining loss to the Orioles. “He’s impacted the ball more, he just hasn’t had the results to show for it. Whether it’s a foul ball or a ball to the wall. [Demotion] isn’t even an option in my mind right now.”

Bird, who did not start against the Orioles on Sunday and was hit by a pitch as a pinch hitter in the 10th inning, has struggled to put any success together since the season began on April 2. In 56 at-bats, Bird has, just six hits, with three of those coming in one game against the Cardinals.

Known for his power in his brief time with the Yankees and across five years in the minors, Bird has hit just one home run and is slugging .214, a far cry from his 11 homers and .529 slugging percentage in 46 games during the 2015 season.

“He’s been our best hitting prospect for the last four or five years,” Cashman said. “So you don’t forget that. It’s great that our club is winning, so it allows you to work through lack of production early on at first base. But he’s going to produce. He’s going to be a good player for us for a long time.”

And there have been signs Bird, who missed all of last season following shoulder surgery, could be on the verge of a breakout.

Bird has shown a keen eye at the plate, drawing three walks in Saturday’s game, and has just missed a few home runs by a matter of feet, either going foul or dying on the warning track.

“I’m having a hard time making sense of it,” Joe Girardi said of Bird’s struggles. “It’s just strange how a season starts for players. It’s so unpredictable. He’ll be better for it one day. Right now it’s no fun to go through.”

It’s a struggle that Bird has been dealing with since fouling a pitch off of his ankle during a spring-training game against the Phillies on March 30. Bird’s timing has been off at the plate ever since.

He’s swung through belthigh fastballs, been off-balance on breaking balls and his mechanics suffered. But Girardi has seen improvement in his at-bats over the last week and remains convinced that a hot streak is coming.

“He’s hit some balls hard and hasn’t had some luck,” Girardi said. “He’s due, that’s the good thing. He’s gonna get really hot.”