From George A. King III:
May 6, 2008 -- The bullets he hits find leather. He hits a ball on the screws and watches it die in the April-May wind. Then there are too many feeble ground balls, harmless pop-ups and stress-free fly balls that don't drop.
Welcome to Hitters' Hell, Jason Giambi's current address.
"The hardest thing is for it not to get into your head," said Giambi, who is toting a .150 average into tonight's action against the Indians. "I have seen a lot of the shift and the ball doesn't carry, so I have to hit line drives and they are pitching me in."
"(Hitting coach) Kevin Long and (manager) Joe Girardi believe he will get through it and prove he can still hit," Brian Cashman said yesterday. "He has done everything he has been asked to do and he has stayed healthy. He has earned the opportunity to battle through it."
Is Cashman serious when he says "He has earned the opportunity to battle through it"?
He is hitting .150 and he's making $23,428,571 this year, he hasn't "earned" anything.
Anyway, back on April 22nd I posted this about a Steven Goldman article that suggested the Yankees cut Jason Giambi. For the most part I agreed with the article, the only thing I suggested was the Yankees wait a week or two to see if he could get out of his slump. Every fan I spoke to agreed and said they felt Giambi should be cut or benched.
Then he had a decent four or five games in a row in Chicago and Cleveland and I'm sure many, like myself, were hoping this was a sign he was going to come out of it. But since the 4/26 game in Cleveland he's 1-for-21 (.048) with 5 BB.
Giambi is keeps proving that he just can't cut it in this league anymore. He was terrible last season too. I don't understand why the Yankees won't give up on him. Even if they don't want to cut him playing him everyday at first base is bad for this team. Not only is he not hitting, but he may be the worst defensive first baseman in baseball. Girardi must give him more days off for the good of the team. If that means Shelley Duncan plays some games against right-handers, fine, he can't do any worse than Giambi has done.
3 Comments:
I also believe it is time to cut Giambi. Once they do that, I still would not just hand Duncan the everyday job. I believe there needs to be a change in philosophy. We need to be more gap to gap, take the extra base, a little bit more small ball type of team. We do have power, but we should not wait for the homerun. They will come. I think we should call up Gardner to play left, switch Damon to first, and make sure Matsui never steps out into left field again. Duncan can give Damon, Matsui, or Abreu a day off against a tough lefty sometime, and occasionaly get a start against a righty.
I already said once that I think Giambi needs cut and stand by my prediction that the Yanks will pull a Toronto and cut him sometime in June, barring hes still batting under .200. Which is a more likely scenario being that the longer he goes without hitting the harder it will be to get his average back up.
Duncan brings more then just a bat to the lineup. He brings youth and enthusiasm. Something the Yanks could use more of. Can you name another player who gets excited and is all smiles over and seeing eye, RBI single? People feed off that stuff. And Shelly knows how to walk too, so we wont miss Giambi's BB's at all.
anonymous,
that's not a bad idea with Gardner. I just wonder how well Damon could play at first.
The thing about Damon is he's hitting and needs to be at the top of the order everyday. He makes this offense go. So as long as they can maintain that, I'm fine with whatever they do.
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