Yankees Editorial: Maybe Going the Other Way will help Stephen Drew?

New York Yankees infield-utility man Stephen Drew has struggled mightily at the plate since the start of the 2015 season. He currently has just 20 hits in 113 at-bats, giving him a .177 batting average. Tie that in to his .264 OBP and .345 slugging percentage, and you start to question why the Yankees continue to start him on an every day basis, which you can read about (here.)

Alas, Stephen Drew is now going to try and take a page out of the playbook of teammates Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury in an attempt to get his average above the Mendoza line.

"“I’m going to take what they give me,” Drew told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “Looking at Gardy, he does a really good job. Ellsbury with two strikes, they slap the ball the other way. Hopefully I can continue to do that. Even though a pitch might be in, just be able to start getting those kinds of hits.”"

As mind-blowing as it is, despite his season-long struggles, Yankees skipper Joe Girardi has continued to have confidence in him, insisting that offensive statistics remain a ‘head-scratcher’.

"“I’m going to say it again, and I know it doesn’t mean anything until the numbers change, but he has hit the ball harder than his average has indicated,” Girardi said. “Obviously you hope it balances out.”"

If this new strategy of going the opposite way to beat the shift doesn’t work out, how much longer will Joe Girardi let Stephen Drew handicap the Yankees batting order? There are younger and better internal options waiting in the wings for the Yankees. When you give Jose Pirela playing time, he does nothing but hit. Rob Refsnyder, despite his slow start, is a proven bat that’s primed for a major league call-up.

It’s time to move on Joe.

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