Since the Yankee braintrust decided that Jason couldn't hit major league pitching, he's hitting .325/.449/.533/.982 and batting .382 with runners in scoring position.

His numbers while playing 1B this season are even more eye-popping:

.348/.491/.618/1.109

He's creating more runs per out while playing 1B than any other firstbaseman in baseball but Derrek Lee.

Of course, Jason has been really hot in July (along with Hideki Matsui):

.444/.565/1.222/1.787

He's creating about a run per out this month thus far.

Way to go, Jason!

He couldn't hit that pitching a couple of months ago, or the year and a half before that, but that's when the Yanks were very encouraging of him. Perhaps, in a bizarre way, the Yanks publicly giving up on him spurred something inside him, a sort of screw-you that's pumped him full of natural adrenalin.

I saw an analysis of the recent evolution of Jason's
swing--saying that the Yankees had been trying to get
him to change his swing, which obv. hadn't been working
out. They said he's going back to the swing that worked
for him in the past. Plus some intangibles prob. worked
out, too.

I wonder whether Jason's swing didn't get all messed up from the Yankees' trying to get him to hit the opposite way. He always appeared to be late on everything, and now he's right on top of it. And he's hitting the ball the opposite way quite a bit anyway.

Much as I love to trash the Yankees, I don't see how they can be "blamed" for anything about Giambi. They kept playing him last year whenever he was healthy, giving him 322 PAs even though he stunk up the stadium with a .208/.342/.379 line. They kept playing him in April and May even though he was stinking up the park again and everybody in the media was pronouncing him dead.

The Yankees are now reaping the rewards of their patience. Damn Yankees!

By the way, Giambi now ranks fourth on the Yankees in OPS, behind only A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui. The last two guys aren't far ahead of him. He could well be second on the club in a couple weeks.

Giambi's basically coming back from a full year of injury last year...from his knee, to his pituitary gland, to the staph infections in his eyes, he was a trainwreck pretty much all of last year...plus, who knows what was going on with his body and all of the various performance enhancing drugs he was on/off at the time. All of this is to say that it's not unusual for a hitter to require about a year to get back to his usual self after serious injury...After he shredded himself, Frank Thomas wasn't himself in 2001 or 2002...and then he knocked 42 dingers with a .267/.390/.563/.952 season in 2003. Giambi played through his illness and injury last year, and he's finding his bat speed and stroke now. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up.

Or, more likely, he just found a new masking agent.

He's very, very sorry. About the whole thing. So, so very sorry.

Man, if steroids gave a player .300 points on his OPS I'd totally take them.

Casey, Jason was actually the best hitter on the Yankees last season until he went on the DL in late May for an ankle sprain. At the time he went on the DL, he was hitting .270/.406/.540/.946 (more or less his career averages except for a dip in BA).

It was only after the parasite infection and the pituitary tumor that he completely fell apart offensively.

The Yankees stuck with Giambi through the last four months of the 2004 season and the first two months of 2005, when he was one lousy hitter. They gave him over 300 PAs and got back a sub-.700 OPS. They showed a lot of patience with Giambi and they're now being rewarded, much as I wish otherwise.

Casey, you are off base here. Jason played 16 games after the All-Star break last season. He was on the DL much of the time. But even so, his OPS was over .700 for the season and over .800 before the break.

This season he accumulated around 100 PAs through the first 10 days of May before starting his comeback.

Considering the fact that 1) Giambi is usually a slow starter and 2) he hits much better as a 1Bman but the Yankees kept playing him at DH, I'd say that the Yankees didn't show nearly enough patience with him. Their idiotic moves nearly cost the Yankees the success they are enjoying now with him as his OPS has been nearly 1.000 for the past 2 months.

If I'm offbase the numbers are offbase with me. Giambi's OPS track for the last four months of 2004 (when he played) and the first two months of 2005:

June 2004: .598
July 2004: .464
September 2004: .464
October 2004: .258
April 2005: .768
May 2005: .664

Despite this record of rancid hitting, the Yankees played Giambi a lot when he was healthy, giving him over 300 PAs for the time period.

At least Giambi showed a good eye for the first couple months of 2005, which probably convinced the Yankees that eventually he might again be a productive hitter. Give the Yankees credit (man, I hate to write those words) for a shrewd evaluation that's now paying off.

By the way, Giambi is a slow starter if you look at April but not at May. Despite that putrid .664 OPS in May, 2005, the month has actually been his second best of all months for the period 2002-05, with a combined 1.025 OPS.

That's why everybody in the media was burying him when his May numbers stunk so bad this year. His April numbers weren't anything to write home about, but some media guys were willing to cut him a little slack for a slow start.

The Yankees stayed with him, though, and his numbers finally started to bounce back in late June.

Casey, you and I seem to have the unending thread.

I'll just let it die.