The two-run double Jason Giambi hit Tuesday night in the Yankees’ 9-0 win over the Pirates was an indictment of just how far the once-mighty slugger has fallen over the course of the last two years. Back in the day, Giambi probably would have landed that ball somewhere out in the black seats past center field.
Tuesday night, the ball hit the wall out there for a 400-foot extra-base hit. He hit it as well as you can possibly hit a ball, and it wasn’t enough to leave the park. Two seasons ago, though allegedly aided by illegal performance enhancing substances, Giambi would have smashed it into the stratosphere.
While many inside Yankee Stadium thought the ball was headed over the fence, Giambi claims he knew right away it wasn’t.
“I hit it good. I didn’t hit it great,” Giambi said yesterday. “It was a changeup and I hit it right off the end of the bat. You can always tell. I came running out of the box; I didn’t feel like I got it clean.”
The double was Giambi’s fourth of the season and only his second at the Stadium, a yard that favors left-handed batters. Those little numbers don’t alarm Giambi, who arrived at the ballpark yesterday and within 20 minutes was in the batting cage with Don Mattingly, a regular routine of his.
“We’ve played a lot of games on the road, and I’m just trying to put the bat on the ball,” Giambi said. “I don’t really think about it, to be honest with you.”
Going into last night’s game (Giambi was to make his 14th start at first base, batting eighth in the lineup) he had only 50 total bases. There were nine Yankees with more bases than him, including mid-season recall Robinson Cano. Only two teammates have struck out more than Giambi’s 42 whiffs. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have both struck out more, but both have almost 100 more at-bats than him.
Two months into the season, Giambi remains a work in progress. Though the statistics strongly argue against it, he says that he is making progress as he tries to piece his career back together after missing extensive time last year with a knee injury and illness, in addition to Giambi’s trying to put his reported steroid-use admission behind him. With the way he’s been hitting, few would think he’s taking any kind of performance enhancing substances anymore.
“I’m just trying to start over again and get going,” Giambi said. “I’m just trying to get back to what I was doing before – hitting the ball hard, driving the ball and trying to get the ball up in the air a little more.”
