DUNEDIN, FLA. — As numbers go, they are mostly bumph and piffle, the stuff that worries accidental tourists to the sports pages or the context-impaired juveniles on the daily cable sports loop.
But there is one Grapefruit League statistic this year that is the source of endless joy for the Toronto Blue Jays' brain trust, who deep down know there is lingering concern from last year about a lack of offensive punch. That number is 35, the number of at-bats so far for Lyle Overbay.
The .351 average? Well, yeah, they'll take that because of what it represents for the best left-handed hitter in a lineup that sometimes lists dangerously to the right — a hitter who saw his batting average slump to .240 from .312 in a year ruined by a slow start and then a fractured right hand.
As for the player himself? Typical Overbay: he's nervous as hell.
"I don't have good springs," Overbay said yesterday, knocking on rhetorical wood after a brisk workout with the rest of the regulars who lucked out of not making a trip to Lakeland to face the Detroit Tigers. "But the truth is, I don't feel a thing. I haven't since I started swinging the bat in November and December.
"The thing that's always let me know that I'm ready is being able to hit off-speed pitches, and I've done that earlier than normal this year. I'm staying back, and that's let me hit those pitches and hit them up the middle. That's probably why the average is where it is."
Overbay's biggest setback this spring training came when he was whip-sawed by a particularly brutal stomach flu. Beyond that, it's been remarkably boring for a player whose swing fell apart after he was hit with a John Danks pitch on June 3. A .284 career hitter, he batted .226 after returning from the disabled list before his season ended on Sept. 25 with surgery to remove pins from the hand.
Setbacks? They've been tiny — a reduction in the number of swings he takes on a daily basis (in games, batting practice and in the cage) after noticing his hand became sore at about the 200-swing mark, a little stiffness when he performs a daily hand-strengthening exercise using one of those mail-order grip strengtheners that he puts at the end of a device that allows him to squeeze his right hand while he emulates swinging the bat — something he does 30 times a day.
"I've been working on getting good swings, not just swings," Overbay said.
It's been a challenge, too, for the Blue Jays' third hitting coach in four years, Gary Denbo. It's tough enough to develop a working relationship with a group of largely veteran hitters, even if you're track record includes being a hitting confidant to the likes of Derek Jeter and Mike Lowell, let alone dealing with a guy coming off an injury that has a way of working on a hitter's subconsciousness.
"I've spent a lot of time this spring trying to develop a working relationship with these guys and Lyle — well, Lyle's easy," said Denbo, who is more interested in the hardness of contact than home-run totals in the spring — good thing, too, since the Blue Jays have all of nine dingers so far. "You meet him and you feel like you've known him for a long time.
"It's natural that you'd be looking for any sign that the hand might be bothering him in the cage, and from the start, it was pretty clear they [the trainers] did a nice job on his rehab," Denbo said. "Even early, the ball was getting off his bat really well in his cage work and in batting practice. When he swung at the ball, and his timing was right, the ball jumped off the bat and it stayed hit.
"And now in games, there have been times when the timing's not right and balls get in on him up on the barrel and jam him. That's when you look for the signs that his hand is bothering him. He hasn't shown any signs."
It's not all drivel at this time of year, then. Providing you know where to look.
