No, not the illegal steroid kind. He's looking to improve his swing on inside pitches. Here's more from
George King:
Instead, the hitting coach is focused on Johnson using the lower half of his body to keep from getting beat on inside pitches.
Long believes even if the left-handed hitting Johnson doesn't attempt to become a dead-pull hitter -- something Johnson says won't happen intentionally -- the jet stream that flows to right field and Yankee Stadium's short porch will result in Johnson's home run totals rising.
Johnson went to Arizona last week for a two-day session with Long and the batting cage rat immediately went to work on Johnson's feet.
"We worked on trying to keep his back foot [left] in place, trying to keep it from flying back," Long said of Johnson's approach. "When it moves he collapses the inside right away. That takes away the inside of the plate. We talked about Yankee Stadium and figured we might want to address that."
...
"I never used my legs in the past," the career .273 hitter with a .402 on-base percentage said. "It felt good to work on that."
Known for a keen eye and the ability to lay off pitches, Johnson and Long also talked about the patient Johnson attacking a bit more.
"Being ready to hit from pitch one and staying more aggressive," Johnson said of Long's message.
Remember when I used to complain about Kevin Long? Well, that's not going to happen again any time soon. He has consistently shown that he is a very hard worker, something that paid off big time last year with several guys in the Yankees lineup. I'm hoping, and somewhat expecting him to do the same for Johnson as well as Curtis Granderson.
