Quite a stir was made a few days ago when Derek Jeter told Ian O’Connor that he wasn’t thinking about his new stride after working on it all spring. “I just said the heck with it,” said the Cap’n. “I wasn’t going to think about it. Before you’re trying to think about where your foot is and you’re trying not to move it, and it’s just too much to think about. So today I tried not to.” Rob Neyer picked it up and presented it as if Jeter abandoned the new stride and went back to his old ways, which wasn’t entirely true. He just said he wasn’t going to think about it, not that he was giving up on it all together.
Fast forward to this morning. Buster Olney reported before this afternoon’s game that there were “indications” that Jeter has in fact given up on his new stride and gone back to his old mechanics. It wasn’t clear if Olney was reporting this as new information or if he was just piggy-backing on O’Connor’s report, but then Jeter came to the plate in the first inning against Francisco Liriano with the leg kick and stride he used for most of his career. It worked today – he went 2-for-3 (legit double into the left field corner and an infield single) with a walk – and Jeter never really seemed to be get comfortable with the changes Kevin Long tried to make, so whatever works I guess.
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