With Flick of His Wrists, Jeter Changes

Alfonso Soriano said it looked like old times, and Andy Pettitte said Jeter might as well have been swinging a magic wand.Chris Stewart did not say anything at all. “I just thought it must be nice, making it look that easy,” Stewart said.Jeter arrived after a 17-day absence with a quadriceps strain, on top of missing the first 91 games recovering from a fractured ankle, and with one swing, on one pitch, he punctuated precisely what the Yankees hope they can recover with his return.The box score shows he did not deliver the winning hit in Sunday’s 6-5 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays. That came from another recent arrival, Soriano. But the emotional lift, the theatrics, the throbbing crowd — that was all summoned by Jeter’s first swing.There are other, larger matters threatening like thunderclouds around the Yankees these days.Buy Cheap Abercrombie Men's Shirts Specifically, the offstage drama involving Alex Rodriguez, who has remained indecisive about whether he would challenge any potential suspension handed down by Major League Baseball, as people close to him indicated Sunday, or accept whatever penalties M.L.B. imposes as part of an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.But on Sunday, Rodriguez’s troubles and the Yankees’ recent on-field scuffles seemed galaxies away.velour tracksuits wholesale Jeter was back, and he wasted little time buoying the team’s hopes. In the first inning, he strode to the plate, nodded to his friend and Tampa, Fla., neighbor Joe Maddon, the Rays’ manager, and slapped the first pitch from Matt Moore into the stands in right field.“He’s a movie,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. “You think about his 3,000th hit, how he did that. We haven’t hit a home run since the All-Star break. We haven’t had a right-handed home run in months. For him to come out and do that his first swing, he’s a movie.”It was the first home run by a right-handed Yankees hitter in 28 games and only the seventh by a Yankees righty off a left-handed pitcher all season. Two innings later, after a single by Jeter, Soriano popped a two-run homer to right, his first home run since the Cubs traded him to the Yankees on Friday. 

That put the Yankees ahead, 5-4, after starter Phil Hughes allowed a three-run homer to Wil Myers in the third. Myers homered off Hughes again in leading off the fifth, tying the score, 5-5. When Hughes walked the next batter, his day was over.The game remained tied until the ninth. Facing Rays reliever Jake McGee, Brett Gardner led off with a walk and reached second on a wild pitch. McGee walked Jeter intentionally, and after Robinson Cano struck out, Soriano delivered the winning single up the middle on the first pitch.Soriano finished 4 for 5, and Ichiro Suzuki went 4 for 4, his 50th career four-hit game. Jeter went 2 for 4. After missing 103 of the team’s 105 games this season, he said he was pleased to contribute.“Even if I didn’t hit a homer and we won the game,http://www.kadifashion.com/ I’d feel the same,” Jeter said. “I wouldn’t feel good if we lost this game.”Before the game, Jeter tried to temper expectations about his return, at 39, to a lineup desperate for offensive help.“My job is to get hits, get on base, score runs and help us win,Buy Cheap Ralph Lauren Men's Polos” Jeter said. “It’s not like I’m some savior coming here and we’re going to start winning everything. Everybody has to contribute.”The team requested that he curb some of his all-out hustling style, at least for a few days, to allow his legs to readjust to playing. Jeter said it would not be easy, but he followed through, running at about 85 percent on two groundouts.“I don’t like doing it,” Jeter said of toning it down. “I’ve run hard my entire career.”The Yankees cannot afford to again lose him or that latent potential that can awaken with one swing of his bat, sending tremors through the stadium and gasps through the dugout,Wholesale Lingerie Sexy Lingerie among players who look to him for that lift.“Whether it’s a game in April, October, November, it doesn’t make a difference,” Jeter said. “I like to play and I want to help us win.”