“I think the injury bug is starting to come back to bite us.
I think we got away with it early. It shows you how important Alex is to this
team.” – Eric Chavez
You can say many things about Eric Chavez, accident
prone,
athletic, good looking, but add
this to the list... unaware.
Unaware of just how much of an impact he's been of late. That quote
from Chavez above was from earlier last week.
To put it in context, he was asked about what the loss of
Alex Rodriguez
means to the Yankees right now.
Chavez
spoke like a New York Yankee veteran should. He didn’t knock Alex, he praised
him and suggested that ARod’s bat is missed, meanwhile, he could have talked about himself and his own hot streak. He didn't, I like that... that's class. We all know Chavez was red hot for the fast few weeks and I'm assuming he knew it too before his brief and back soreness happened, read
HERE. But in the past, that back soreness may have lasted a month, but instead he was out for the series against the Blue Jays and suddenly, in his return last night against Texas...what does he do? He homers. What else can be asked of Eric Chavez... is he finally back to his old clutch ways?
When Eric Chavez came up with the Oakland Athletics, I
remember thinking
“Who the hell is this guy? He’s incredible!” He had a leadership quality, he was a hell of
a ball player and he had balls.
Much
like I wrote about
Paul O’Neill and even
Jorge Posada in the past, you need a
quality like that on a club, not everyone has that passion. Sure, all these
players play hard, but it’s certain players that will run through a wall to get
the winning run.
Eric Chavez,
Jorge Posada and Paul O’Neill have that fire.
Chavez doesn’t realize, or maybe he does, just how important he is to
this Yankee club right now.
He’s lifted us, and
even if we are losing 1 here and 1 there, he is in every big hit or scoring
rally. He’s in the thick of it like he was in Oakland.
Bottom line, the guy's got balls and he’s got
that heart back, much like the Tin man in the Wizard of Oz. After Oakland it
seemed to diminish, but he searched and he got it back in New York!
The hardest thing to crack about Chavez is he plays so hard,
you almost need to wrap him up in bubble wrap, he’s fragile.
He’s had plenty of injury and freak accidents
in his time, this brief sore back was the latest. But once he
gets busted up, he then comes back stronger than ever, hence last night.
Bottom line
though, we celebrate Chavez here at Bleeding Yankee Blue and many don’t.
He deserves a lot of credit for a lot of wins
lately.
Last Thursday in Detroit needed to be
have a bigger celebration than he received.
Last night in the Bronx against Texas, he tacked on more to the Yankees lead.
Chavez is a champion and sure, we can talk about Alex Rodriguez and how
we miss the guy in the lineup, but even I was more concerned about Chavez
filling the 3
rd base hole on a regular basis.
I suggested he’d be tired.
I suggested he couldn’t handle playing 9
innings every game because he’s not an every day player. Hey, if he gets a day off here and there, everything will be fine, as long as the injuries don't sneak up on him or affect him for long lengths of time, I like what I see from Chavez, I really do.
So yeah, Alex is missed, there is no doubt about it, but
Eric Chavez is turning heads and needs the proper respect. He’s doing great…it must be those pinstripes
that made the animal come out of Chavez again…I’ll tell you something…I welcome
it.
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