Joe Girardi on Ellsbury: “We have to get him going”

Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Following Tuesday’s 6-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Yankees’ manager Joe Girardi Jacoby Ellsbury talked to the New York Post about outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury’s struggles at the plate.

"He has struggled a bit. He is kind of in between. He is a guy who was so good in the first five weeks of the season and he is in a little funk now. We have to get him going, he is a big part of our offense.”"

Ellsbury went 0-for-4 Tuesday with two strikeouts. It was his sixth hitless performance in seven games, a stretch that began with an 0-for-5 game in a 12-7 loss to the New York Mets on May 12.

Ellsbury may have begun to break out of his slump during Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Cubs, when he went 2-for-6 in what was his first multi-hit game in two weeks. Still, he is only hitting .206 during the month of May and .269 on the season.

His disappointing May comes after an impressive (to say the least) April. In the first month of the season, Ellsbury hit .312 with nine doubles, 11 runs batted in, and eight stolen bases. For much of the month, he was arguably the Yankees’ best position player.

A career .296 hitter, the 30-year-old Ellsbury spent the first seven seasons of his career in Boston with the rival Red Sox. There, he had two seasons — in 2009 and 2011 — in which he hit over .300 and another — last season — in which he hit .298.

Ellsbury, of course, signed a 7-year, 153 million dollar deal with the Yankees as a free agent this past December.