Jacoby Ellsbury got off to a hot start in 2015, finally playing like the guy who tormented the Yankees when he was with Boston.
He was hitting .324/.412/.372 with a homer, four RBI and 14 stolen bases before spraining his knee on May 19, which forced him out of action for about a month and a half. When Ellsbury returned in July, he clearly wasn’t the same player. He finished the year with a disappointing line of .257/.318/.345 with six homers, 33 RBI and 21 stolen bases.
Ellsbury addressed the media today and spoke about his injury last season. According to Chad Jennings of LoHud Yankees Blog, the 32-year-old centerfielder feels he’s 100 percent healthy.
Ellsbury said that it wasn’t until the offseason that he realized how bad the knee injury affected his performance. “I tried to get back as soon as I could, but it wasn’t really until the offseason when I started working out, training that (things got back to normal). Now I feel 100 percent,” he said to Jennings. Ellsbury noted that during the regular season you don’t have time to wait to get healthy. He wanted to help his teammates, so maybe he rushed back too soon.
This is good news for the Yankees, who desperately need Ellsbury to produce at the top of the order along with Brett Gardner. We saw last season how the rest of the lineup works when those two get on base consistently.
Ellsbury also addressed his benching in the AL Wild Card game, saying that he didn’t feel the need to reach out to Joe Girardi and mend fences over the offseason. Ellsbury said he talked to Girardi that day, and nothing else needed to be said. “He knows how bad I want to play, and he knows how much time I put into playing to be the player that I am,” he told Jennings.
Girardi has said that he was faced with a tough decision in benching Ellsbury, and did what he felt was right for the team. Both seem to be on good terms with each other.
