Lost amid all the offense from last night was a key at-bat from an unlikely contributor. When Jerry Hairston Jr.’s name came up as the Yankees big trade deadline acquisition, I was a little skeptical. A Boston fan in one of my fantasy baseball leagues renamed his team “JerryHairstonJrAHAHA”. But Hairston has been everything they could have wanted and last night showed why.
Johnny Damon predicted it. Speaking to reporters before the game, he told them (via PeteAbe’s blog): “Johnny Damon said his knee is fine. He attributed the day off to his struggles against Holland on May 27. He went 0 for 3 and struck out twice against Holland despite the Yankees roughing up the young lefty. Damon’s only other career AB against Holland was a strikeout. ‘Hairston would probably do a better job than me,’ Damon said.”
So how did Hairston do in Damon’s absence?
His first at-bat, Hairston saw 7 pitches and walked.
His second at-bat, Hairston saw 7 pitches and homered.
His third at-bat was the key of the game. The Yankees were up 4-2 in the bottom of the 7th and had Robinson Cano on second base. The count was 2-2 after 4 pitches. Then foul, foul, ball, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul, and finally, ball four. Hairston’s walk knocked Derek Holland out of the game and the Yankees ended up scoring 5 in that inning to seal a 9-2 win.
In total, Hairston saw 34 pitches in 4 plate appearances. That’s 8.5 pitches per plate appearance. With the Yankees, Hairston has a .314/.415/.543 line coming off the bench and filling in for multiple positions. Over his career, Hairston has seen a relatively low 2.76 pitches per plate appearance. With the Yankees, he’s up to 4.17 P/PA.
And he was a big reason they won last night’s game (not taking anything away from Andy Pettitte’s great start).
That’s pretty good for a guy that the Yankees took a flyer on and no one wanted.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment