LAKELAND, Fla. — If Greg Bird and Luke Voit play like they have in the early portion of the exhibition season, the Yankees are going to have an impossible decision to make regarding who makes the team.
Wednesday against the Tigers at Publix Field the first basemen each shined in different ways during a 10-4 rain-shortened loss.
Bird crushed a three-run, opposite-field homer to left in a four-run Yankees first inning and Voit scooped two balls out of the dirt. Bird’s first homer of the season and Voit’s glove work are the product of each player’s work during the offseason.
After missing all of 2016 due to shoulder surgery and big chunks of the next two seasons due to right ankle surgery, Bird is using the lower half of his body to provide a base to hit from. The homer to left was proof.
“Ideally, that’s where I’d like to be with my swing. That was nice. That was really nice,’’ said Bird, who is taking the less-is-more approach to his hack. “Back to where I need to be, using my legs to hit. Ride your legs out. That controls my swing, and less is more. Not swinging with your upper body, you’re swinging with your lower half.”
In three games, the left-handed hitting Bird is 3-for-5 with a homer, double and three RBIs and likes the results no matter if they are coming in February.
“It’s nice. You always want to do well when you go out, even if it’s early in spring. It’s fun to be competitive and be able to go out and play and have fun doing it and be on a great team. That’s it. It’s been awesome,’’ Bird said. “It was a great offseason and I’m in a good place. I still think there are things I need to work on and just getting the game reps again. Even being out on the field and just getting used to it again. But I’m really excited with where I’m at.”
When Brian Cashman said during the offseason the first-base job was “Voit’s to lose, ’’ it was because he hit .333 with 14 homers, 33 RBIs and posted a 1.094 OPS in 39 games after coming to the Yankees in a late July trade with the Cardinals.
Wednesday, Voit went 0-for-1 with a strikeout and a walk, but the work he put in during the winter to improve his defense was on display with the scoops.
“Still a lot more to go, but that has been what I have been working on the past three weeks. It’s nice, all the hard work I put in to see results,’’ said Voit, who is 2-for-4 with a homer and four RBIs in two games this spring. “That is the stuff I try to take more pride in. I struck out, but I walked, too, and I need to take a positive out of every game. That is something I have to stress on myself. I am happy with what I did today.’’
Aaron Boone, who will have a say in who stays and who goes, said Voit’s leather was a ray of sunshine on a dreary day.
“At least a couple of bright things happened today,’’ the manager said. “You can tell he has put a lot of work in and [infield coach Carlos Mendoza] has done a great job with him. I think he is in really good shape so he seems a little more athletic over there.’’
As for Bird’s bat, Boone said he witnessed the same life in workouts at the minor league camp before players reported to spring training.
“It’s a continuation of what we saw when I got down here, the different sound off the bat, the different way he is impacting the ball,’’ Boone said. “He hit that ball to left today and it was like a righty hit it. It is good to see.’’
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