My proof that high socks don't make you better:
Those of you, who have missed the Yankee games the past two days are probably yet to see Jason Giambi's new stylistic add-on to his uniform. Since Saturday, The Great Michael Kay, the spectacular master of redundancy, has mentioned that the Giambino (can we still call him that?) has changed over to high socks in an effort to play better. Well, that didn't really work out. Giambi is 0-5 in those two games to move his average down to a stellar .150. And let's not forget that his defensive skills won't knock your socks off. (Nice, see what I did there?)
I'm pretty sure the high socks aren't going to make a difference when your swing has a massive upper-cut and you refuse to hit the ball the other way. The Great Michael Kay always mentions that Giambi is here to hit homeruns. His job is to hit the ball out of the ballpark and thus, he should be trying to pull the ball. That's fine to believe, but how is it that Joe Girardi would rather have a .150 hitter with 20 homers on his team than a .270 hitter with 10 homers? It amazes me when Giambi gets up to hit in a one run game, in the late innings and grounds to second when there is a huge hole on the left side. I don't understand why ex-players aren't more outraged by this. Why isn't Paul O'Neill, a clutch left-handed hitter who loved to go the other way, ready to castrate him every time he grounds out to second?
Giambi said recently that he has been hitting the ball better than his numbers may entail, it's just that he's been hitting it right at the fielders. Of course that's true. He's electing to hit the ball to the one place on the field where there are four defensive players waiting to throw him out at first.
My proof that he isn't putting in any effort to go the other way:
It's one thing to pull a fastball over the outer part of the plate, because if you are a strong hitter, you can still hit it into the gap. Let's not forget from his steroid days, that Giambi is still a very strong man and can hit the ball a long way (the one out of every 30 times he makes good contact). The Giambino (yeah, you definitely can't call him that anymore) is actually hitting fastballs pretty well (.285). He can still pull them into the gaps or out of the ballpark. However, every good hitter is taught to sit on breaking-balls and off speed pitches and this is Giambi's main fault. He is jumping out in front of the pitches and rolling his wrists over.
He is hitting .151 off curveballs and .073 off other off-speed pitches, clearly not sitting on them and driving them into left field.
- Darrell Spellings
1 comment:
Maybe if he were hitting with a syringe, hed make contact every once in a while
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