Brett Gardner Making Adjustments to Game

Brett Gardner was supposed to save the Yankees and their fans from what had become an enormous disappointment of a season for Melky Cabrera.

Instead, when Gardner was first called up he had lots of problems reaching base and got off to his own disappointing start. In his first 17 games Gardner hit just .153 with a .227 OBP.

Gardner’s poor numbers weren’t really surprising to their hitting coach Kevin Long who said almost immediately he saw flaws in the 25-year-old’s game.

“The first time I saw him, I just let him go,” Long said. “Obviously when you’ve been called up to the big leagues, you’ve had some success. It’s my job to sort through what I think will work and what I think won’t work. I saw some things we could change. He had too much going on with his swing.”

However, since that time he worked with Gardner and he said that by the next time he was called up he had already seen some changes that he recommended. “He had to be able to recognize pitches,” Long said. “He’s closer to the hitting position now. That makes it more conducive to making better contact.

“He’s just in a very good position to make decisions. Before he just wasn’t in a good position to react to the baseball. You saw a lot of foul balls the other way; you saw him swinging at bad pitches or take good pitches and get in a big hole. You don’t see that now.”

Gardner himself said that those final few weeks, where he hit .294 with a .333 OPS over the final 25 games, helped give him confidence. That confidence apparently has carried over into this season and could be giving him the edge to win the center field job out of spring.

“Those last few weeks gave me some confidence I could succeed at that level,” said Gardner, 25. “When the season ended, Kevin and I talked about keeping with that approach all winter and trying to bring it into the spring. It has worked out pretty well.”

“I had a few good games,” he said. “I still have a lot I want to accomplish. They gave me a shot and I need to take advantage of it.”

Long thinks that his first stint was just what Gardner needed to make the adjustments to stick with the ball club. He also believes that he could be better than people think.

“If you don’t fail, you aren’t going to change anything. You need to fail to come up with some solutions,” he said. “Brett has done a good job of changing his mechanics and changing his mind-set.

“People ask me to compare him to somebody and I don’t want to do that because it sets limitations. He can be better than people think.”