Yankees fans don’t need to worry about first base

Yankees fans were getting fed up with the production they were getting at first base for most of the season. Thankfully there’s no reason to worry now because Greg Bird is hot.

The New York Yankees have one of, if not the best offense in all of baseball, and that’s without production from the first base spot for the majority of the season. Greg Bird had a solid spring training headed into the season, and per usual got hurt right at the end.

He started the season on the disabled list, which prompted the Yankees to go with a platoon of Neil Walker and Tyler Austin at first base. Austin may have sufficed for the short term, but he probably wasn’t anywhere near a season long answer at first base.

He only slashed .223/.280/.471 with a .751 OPS in 33 games this season. Outside of his two-home run game in the second game of the season, the production just hasn’t been there. Neil Walker has just been bad all season no matter the position.

First base has been statistically the least productive position for the Yankees. First basemen are only hitting .205/.286/.393 this season. It’s the only position group to have an on-base percentage lower than .300 and a slugging percentage lower than .400. Safe to say it hasn’t been all that great.

Once Bird returned to the lineup, he wasn’t all that great either. From his first game on May 15 until the end of June, Bird only slashed .204/.315/.452, which is really on par with the rest of the league as far as OPS goes, but more is expected from him.

Bird isn’t going to hit .280 or anything like that, but he is going to hit the long ball and should drive in somewhere between 80 to 100 RBI during a full season. Early during his return, he wasn’t hitting the ball in the air and he was grounding out into the shift. However, as of the past couple weeks, he’s elevating the ball, and hitting it hard. Case in point, the grand slam he hit against the Orioles.

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Yankees fans must realize Bird essentially had to have a second spring training after missing nearly the first two months of the season. Now that he’s started to find his stride, he completes the lineup.

Look for Bird to really start to rake during the second half of the season, and for everyone to not worry so much about first base.