Up-and-down year for Gardner

ATLANTA — Playing ball just a couple of miles from Broadway, New York Yankees center fielder Brett Gardner has been no stranger to drama this spring.

You might've seen the former College of Charleston standout profiled in a recent ESPN TV feature story. Gardner hit an inside-the-park home run that honored a young girl waiting for a heart transplant.

Then, two weeks back, Gardner became a SportsCenter star yet again. But not for such noble reasons. More for an accidental one.

Playing against Washington on June 18, Gardner knocked himself silly by backpedaling into the wall at new Yankee Stadium. Gardner needed smelling salts to bring him around, but he held on for the grab.

"Yeah," the Holly Hill native said, "I guess it's been an interesting few weeks."

In the middle of all that's gone on for Gardner, you could easily miss the fact that he's playing terrifically on a bigger stage than those in Times Square.

A 5-for-6 night Friday against the crosstown rival Mets was the high point of what's been a solid couple of months for the former college walk-on.

The five-hit game, which included a triple and his third home run of the year, got his average up to a season-high .303. Through Monday, Gardner was hitting .289 in 66 games.

The 5-10, 180-pound speedster, nicknamed the Rabbit by friends in college, hit .327 in 22 games (11 starts) in May. And then followed up by hitting .333 in 23 games (14 starts) in June.

Gardner talked in spring training about a pretty dramatic change to his swing, in which he eliminated a stride to become a more fluid hitter.

"No matter what changes you make, you hope you'll pick it up pretty quick, but it takes time," Gardner said. "You just continue to make strides and improvements and try to keep getting better."

After playing so well in the spring that he took the center field job away from incumbent Melky Cabrera, Gardner dipped once the season started. Those starts were soon going back to Cabrera.

"Obviously, I had some disappointment," Gardner said. "But this is a silly game. You know it's a lot of ups and downs. I had a great spring training, and the law of averages says I'd come down from that. You know the struggles are going to come. You just have to handle them and move on."

The ups and downs are visible even on a nightly basis. Thursday evening in the rubber game against Atlanta, Gardner picked up hits in his first two at-bats against struggling Braves starter Derek Lowe.

Then, in the fourth, Gardner called for a popup in shallow left-center field that should've gone to either left fielder Johnny Damon or shortstop Derek Jeter. He couldn't get there, and the ball dropped.

Two batters later, Gardner completely misplayed a ball in center for a run-scoring error.

Even in the down moments, the Yankees are keenly aware of how fiercely Gardner plays.

Gardner and Jeter are tied for the team lead with 17 stolen bases. But Jeter has 324 plate appearances to Gardner's 185.

And then there's that little run-in with the wall in New York, something that was perhaps more symbolic than anything else.

Washington's Austin Kearns smacked a ball to the left-center-field gap in a 3-0 game. Gardner drifted back — well, paced back quickly — and ran his rear into the padding on the lower part of the wall. His head snapped back and whacked into the Plexiglas part of the barrier.

Gardner claims he wasn't knocked all the way out, but he sure looked woozy as trainers had to break out the smelling salts to ensure his coherency.

"It was pretty scary at first, but once I realized I could move everything, I relaxed. I knew I hadn't injured anything," Gardner said. "It could have been a lot worse. I'm pretty lucky it wasn't."

He was taken from the field on a cart, but didn't suffer a concussion. Gardner was back in the lineup two nights later at Florida.

"I think guys know how I play," Gardner said. "That's one of the things that got me here, playing hard all the time. I'm never going to change that. Things like that might happen again, but I can't change."

Not even in a New York minute.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com.