Yanks' Long feels slumping hitters' pain

Kevin Long recalled the one time since he's been the Yankees' hitting coach when he felt he had little to contribute. It was two days in 2007 at the old Stadium when it seemed the entire lineup clicked.

"I remember one stretch when we were playing the Rays where we scored like 18 runs, 15 runs, and every guy was going good," Long said Tuesday after the Yankees finished early batting practice.

His memory was close.

The Yankees won the first game of a July 21 doubleheader, 7-3, and the second, 17-5. They won the next day, 21-4.

"It was nice because I didn't know what to do," Long said. "I was just sitting back and enjoying it as much as any fan out there."

He paused a moment.

"Most of the time, that's not the case."

For Long, in his fifth year as the team's hitting coach, the season can feel like a prolonged slump. Rarely, as he said, is everyone hitting. Like a 13-man stock market, one or two players may be up while one, two, three players -- or more -- may be down, as was the case heading into Thursday night's game against Kansas City.

After the Yankees' 12-5 victory over the Rangers on Sunday in Texas, for example, Long spent several minutes talking about Derek Jeter's good week that culminated with a 4-for-6, two-homer afternoon. But there also were questions about Alex Rodriguez's 6-for-26 trip and Jorge Posada's continued struggles. Long also volunteered that he had seen something on video before the game regarding a slumping Russell Martin.

"It's an ongoing cycle," Long said this week. "It never ends."

That is not a complaint. Long loves his job. He spent 18 years in the minors before getting his big-league call-up to be the Yankees' hitting coach in 2007, replacing Don Mattingly, who was promoted to Joe Torre's bench coach.

Long chronicles his journey from career minor-leaguer -- he quit the game at 29 after eight years in the Royals' system -- to career minor-league coach to finally making the big leagues to becoming, as he is now, the game's second-highest-paid hitting coach in "Cage Rat: Lessons from a Life in Baseball by the Yankees Hitting Coach."

Alex Rodriguez wrote the forward to the book, written with Glen Waggoner and released in late April, and Robinson Cano provided the afterward.

"An absolute perfect description of my good friend," Rodriguez wrote in the forward, referencing the "Cage Rat" title.

A-Rod, the first player Long worked with in the 2007 offseason, usually has a standard response when asked about Long: "He's just a very gifted and special hitting coach."

In spring training, Mark Teixeira said of Long: "He just exudes confidence."

In a game that typically tears away at it.

Posada doesn't like looking at the scoreboard and seeing the .162 average he brought into Thursday night's game. The same for Nick Swisher, who came in batting .217. Or A-Rod, who has dropped to .259 after a torrid start. Or Martin, who's at .255 after scorching the ball much of the first month.

Long internalizes it, as each slumping player does. Not that he equates the two. But in some ways, each game, each at-bat even, can be a personal referendum on how he feels about how he's doing his job.

It is personal.

"Very personal," Long said. "It's my job. It's my livelihood. It's kind of what allows me to sleep at night or not sleep at night. It seems like there's always a guy or two that's struggling, and my job is to get him on track as quick as possible. So when they struggle, I struggle. I feel like I'm going through their at-bats with them . . . I feel their pain and I feel what they're going through. If I didn't feel that, then something would be wrong."