SEATTLE – Derek Jeter felt a lot older than 27 yesterday.
While every other Yankee hit during yesterday’s workout at Safeco Field, Jeter spent the afternoon in the hot tub and getting rubbed down.
“Everywhere,” Jeter said when asked where he was sore after his leap into the stands to make a catch Monday night against the A’s. “That was a car wreck.”
Jorge Posada put it in athletic terms, saying, “He got hit by Ray Lewis.”
Jeter, who fully expects to play today in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Mariners, said he was stiff and sore from the neck down. So when Joe Torre gave his players the option to work out after a mandatory scouting report meeting was finished, Jeter opted to stay indoors instead of subjecting his sore body to the bone-chilling dampness of the Pacific Northwest.
“I left it up to them, if they wanted to hit or not,” Joe Torre said of his band of tired players, who didn’t arrive at the team hotel until 6 a.m. yesterday after their second cross-country flight in less than three days.
After leading the Yankees past the A’s with his glove and bat (he hit .444, 8-for-18), Jeter is expected to do the same versus the Mariners.
“You have to enjoy playing in this type of atmosphere,” said Jeter, a .332 (87-for-262) hitter in the postseason. He is the all-time post-season hit leader.
“Obviously, you are under the microscope and everything you do is going to be magnified. Just because you enjoy it doesn’t mean you are going to go out there and be successful, but you can’t shy away from it.”