Turning Things Around

From Another Rieber:

A fuzzy-faced Jason Giambi made a bold proclamation after yesterday's 12-6 Yankees win over the Mariners: "The 'stache is going to be here for a while."

"It's exciting to kind of turn the corner and get some of those hits to fall," said Giambi, batting .386 (17-for-44) with four homers and 11 RBIs in his last 14 games after having dropped to .150. "I owe a lot of the credit to [hitting coach] Kevin Long and Joe Girardi and my teammates. When I started off a little slow but was hitting the ball good, they were being positive and not letting me get discouraged by it."

"I'm doing the same thing I was doing the first six weeks of the season," said Cano, whose average is at .232. "I feel the same now that I'm getting more hits."

For the first month it really seemed like everything they hit was right at somebody, and maybe the balls are just finding holes now. Here take a look at their BABIP (Batting Average on Balls hit In Play) for the first two months.

Robinson Cano - April: .156 . . . May: .311 (before yesterday)
Jason Giambi - April: .119 . . . May: .297 (before yesterday)

Monthly Spilts

Cano -
April: .151, 2 HR, 7 RBI, .446 OPS
May: .352, 2 HR, 11 RBI, .920 OPS

Giambi -
April: .164, 5 HR, 13 RBI, .726 OPS
May: .333, 4 HR, 11 RBI, 1.145 OPS

One thing they've both done a little more of is hit the ball the other way this month, and that's part of why these numbers look the way they do. But another part of it has to be luck. A liner that was right at someone in April is now going through the hole in May.

I'm sure A-Rod being back has helped everyone in the lineup a little bit as well. Since he's been back Cano is hitting .450 (9-for-20) with 5 doubles and 6 RBI, and Giambi is hitting .571 (8-for-14) with a HR, 2 doubles, and 3 RBI.

Whatever the reasons are, I just hope they keep hitting this way, because if they do the Yanks can win a lot of games.