I heard him discuss it (or maybe it was Girardi discussing it?). The story was that he decided way to late that it was going to be strike 3, so he tried to get the bat out there to foul it off. It looked horrible, and I laugh every time I see it. But it is better than just watching the ball go by. Barely.
I'd like to think his hitting is what we could have had a decade of had Dickie Thon not taken that fastball to the eye/cheek...
Remains to be seen how he holds up to the spotlight of the New York media...there have been plenty of good players who went up there and melted. Many were still good players but were not 'superstars' and were raked over the coals...
Yeah, I think last year was his career year and TB was taking advantage of that to dump a crazy salary (this is why I thought he would end up a Ranger). On the other hand, the NYY, as they existed, were already capable of taking us 7 games.
BUT...sometimes a team with too many 'superstars' has a breakdown in chemistry...they keep trying to spell team with an "I" - this is one of the reasons that the Astros seem to do as well as they did is they don't have the egos clashing.