[外電] Yanks Waiting for Damon to Also Have a Turnaround
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Yanks Waiting for Damon to Also Have a Turnaround
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: July 20, 2007
Johnny Damon and Kevin Long were roommates at Class AA Wichita in 1995. Damon h
it .343 and was called up to the Kansas City Royals that summer. He has been in
the majors ever since.
In that time, Damon said, he has probably endured many hitless streaks. But his
average has rarely looked as feeble as it does now, .233, after the Yankees’
3-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in a mundane matinee at Yankee Stadium yester
day. Damon is 0 for 17 in his last five games.
“I can tell you one thing: I’ve never seen him work so hard,” said Long, who
is now the Yankees’ hitting coach. “He’s probably taken more swings in the
last 10 days than I’ve seen him take when I’ve ever been around him.
“He’s working at it. He’s concerned. We want to turn this thing around as qu
ick as possible. He knows we’ve got a bunch of guys swinging the bats well rig
ht now, and he’d like to join the party.”
There was not much to celebrate in the Bronx yesterday. The Yankees scored twic
e in the first inning and Toronto scored three times against Chien-Ming Wang in
the seventh. Neither team advanced a runner to third in any other inning.
The Yankees missed a chance for a sweep, but they still won the series, three g
ames to one, for their fourth series victory in a row. “If we continue to win
series, then we’re in pretty good shape,” Manager Joe Torre said.
Even in losing, Damon showed a glimpse of why the Yankees gave him a four-year,
$52 million contract before last season. He worked an eight-pitch walk against
Dustin McGowan to lead off the bottom of the first. When he reached on an erro
r in the fifth, a wild pickoff throw moved him into scoring position.
Damon has not lost his strike zone judgment, and he is still a threat to run. T
he back, calf and rib cage injuries that bothered him in the first half are gon
e, he said. Damon is simply slumping, and he says he is not sure why.
“My swing feels great, I’m feeling comfortable at the plate,” he said. “Unf
ortunately, I’m just not getting the job done, and I definitely need to. This
team is so much better when I get going.”
In his work with Long — sometimes three separate sessions of pregame batting p
ractice — Damon has concentrated on straightening his back foot, which had bee
n turned in, causing him to shift his weight forward too soon.
Keeping his weight back will, in theory, give Damon more time to see pitches an
d make it easier to use his legs to drive the ball. Long and the bench coach, D
on Mattingly, have seen results before games.
“Donnie and I both saw it in B.P.,” Long said. “We said, Wow, the ball’s ju
mping; he’s hitting the ball out of the park. He just needs one good game and
he’ll be right back on track. I truly believe that, because physically he’s i
n pretty good shape.”
Although Damon spoke hopefully last weekend of someday playing for Tampa Bay, h
e still seems comfortable with the Yankees and has mostly maintained his sunny
outlook. The team is winning despite his struggles, and, he said, “There are m
uch worse things in life than hitting .235.”
But it is frustrating, he acknowledged, to be unable to drive pitches the way h
e did just last season, when he had a .482 slugging percentage with a career-hi
gh 24 home runs. This season, Damon has a .323 slugging percentage and five hom
ers.
After walking in the first and scoring on Bobby Abreu’s two-run double, Damon
struck out, reached on an error and flied to right. The flyout, against Casey J
anssen to lead off the eighth, was especially discouraging.
“I had a pitch that last year probably would have been in the upper deck,” Da
mon said. “I was just a tad too late on it. I’m not sure how hard the pitch w
as, 90 miles per hour. Normally, that ball is very easy to hit for me.”
As a team, the Yankees managed only five hits — one more than Toronto had in t
he seventh against Wang. After Matt Stairs doubled to lead off the seventh and
Vernon Wells followed with an infield hit, Frank Thomas drove in a run with a g
round out off Wang’s left ankle. Wang said he was not affected, and catcher Wi
l Nieves said his sinker to the next hitter, Aaron Hill, was in the right spot.
But Hill smashed it to center for a game-tying triple, and Gregg Zaun followed
with a bouncer up the middle for the go-ahead run.
When reporters gathered around Damon after the game, he did not question why he
would be a story line. But he also does not question his ability.
“I still feel like I’m the guy that people worry about,” Damon said, meaning
other teams, not his own.
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