SOLUTION TO YANKEE BATS PUZZLE? REST & MECHANICS

Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record had a piece 6 days back about ARod and the rest of the crew titled Hitting coach sees A-Rod turnaround. In it, he talks about the Zen Master, Kevin Long and Long’s argument to why ARod "sucking it" down the stretch was simple. He says Alex was getting healthy but just ran out of time:

“He just ran out of time to get healthy and get him where he needed to be.” He goes on to say that the injury to Alex's thumb and the knee surgery set him back and he never recovered. OK, we all knew this was true without Long saying it. The reality is, he’s really not giving us much here, but it’s almost nice to have it confirmed if you will.

He also spoke about the lousy hitting from guys like Mark Teixeira down the stretch. No where did it mention Nick Swisher and that I found to be weird, but that’s another post for another day. Long spoke of Teixeira... and that Mark quote “figured out some things at the end of the year…I’d say the last month to three weeks, we started to feel pretty good about what we worked on and where we needed to go.”

Long also told Caldera that he probably won’t travel much this winter and speak to players on texts and by phone to check in on their hitting and workouts. Rest and mechanics tweaking will surely help these guys and I hope everything works out.

I like Kevin Long. He’s truly a great hitting coach and Curtis Granderson is the biggest success story since he was turned around in the fall of 2010. Part of the reason is because of Granderson’s moving parts in the batter’s box. By cutting all that crap out, there is more time and that transformed him into a guy who once couldn’t hit lefties into a guy that can and can very well I might add... Amazing.

(In Photo: Kevin Maas)
I was thinking about Long and his expertise and then for some odd reason I thought about Kevin Maas and how he came on strong as a young hitter, cranking out home runs and then one day, Kevin Maas couldn’t hit anymore. It turns out he just wasn’t able to hit anything but a fastball and pitchers figured that out fast. Then I thought about Kevin Long and I wondered if Long was in the Yankees system back then, could he have helped Kevin Maas? Would Maas's career have been different? Who the hell knows...I know, I’m demented, by mind wonders when I think about baseball, what can I say.

But getting back on track, let’s be honest, Long does a great job and he’s right about ARod. Alex did need more time to get into a rhythm and to get healthy. Hopefully he's right and we really have nothing to worry about. Look, ARod is still a great hitter and he had a bad season of bad luck and injury... you really can’t fault him for that. He’ll be back and he’ll be fine.

And by the way, to all of you that want to trade ARod…forget it, it ain’t happening. The Yankees signed ARod for 1 reason and 1 reason only, they want the Home Run record back home in the Bronx. Babe Ruth once had it once and then the great Hank Aaron finally broke it with 755. Once Barry Bonds tarnished it and became the new Home Run champ, it was clear that at the time, Alex Rodriguez was the only big time hitter in Major League baseball who could break that record, even Barry Bonds said it. So, Alex and his long contract have a shot. Alex can and should break the home run record as a New York Yankee if he stays healthy. Ladies and Gentlemen, instead of slamming Alex, you should all be rooting for him. It is actually a truly brilliant plan by Yankee brass and while it’s costing millions to do it, no one likes Yankee history better than me, especially on a big stage with a huge milestone like that. It's literally one for the record books and I love it.

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