NEW YORK -- It had been roughly one-third of a big league baseball season since Chase Headley's last home run, and his inability to hit for power, or much of anything for that matter, has been a topic of much heated discussion around the New York Yankees this season. In his first 90 at-bats of the 2016 season, Headley, who is signed through 2018 at $13 million a year, had all of 16 hits, and all 16 were singles. Thus, his batting average entering Thursday night's game was the same as his slugging percentage, and both were meager: .178.
But Headley got off the extra-base-less and homerless schneid with a vengeance in the second inning Thursday, driving a 3-1 fastball from ex-Yankee Ian Kennedy the other way with a runner aboard to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. The homer into the left-field seats was Headley's first since Sept. 12, a drought of 170 at-bats. Headley added a ninth-inning single in New York's 7-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals. It was only his fourth two-hit game of the season.
Headley's home run was the second of three hit by the Yankees off Kennedy: Starlin Castro hit a solo shot in the first inning, and Didi Gregorius hit a two-run homer in the fourth to provide starter Nathan Eovaldi with some breathing room after the Royals cut the lead to 3-2. It was the second game this week in which the Yankees displayed a surge of power; they hit five home runs in Monday's 6-3 win over the Royals, and took three of four games from the defending World Series champions.
But Headley's blast was by far the most surprising, and satisfying, considering how much the 32-year-old third baseman has struggled in the early part of the season. His average at the end of April was .150, and he was swinging with a noticeable lack of conviction. But all season, manager Joe Girardi has maintained that Headley has hit the ball better than his numbers indicate, although his hard-hit percentage hardly bears that out.
Still, the manager repeated his belief before the game that Headley was about to emerge from his funk. "I think he’s hit some balls hard,'' Girardi said. "He’s hit some balls hard foul. He’ll pulled some balls hard. I think he is closer. I think he’s making progress. He hit a breaking ball hard the other day for an RBI. I think he’s on his way back, which is really important to us.”
Eovaldi, who was so good five days ago in pitching eight innings of two-run ball against the Boston Red Sox, was not the same pitcher against the Royals. Once again, he ran deep counts, gave up a lot of hits -- eight in five innings -- and allowed a long home run to Alex Gordon in the fourth inning. But thanks to Headley & Co., Eovaldi came away with his third win of the season.