Youkilis eager to get started
He'd like to avoid faltering at finish
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Though Kevin Youkilis shrugged off a question yesterday about his physique, the first baseman arrived in camp five days early looking slimmed down and ready for the season. After a slowdown that left his hot start to last season a memory, he couldn't have been happy with how his first year as a starter in the majors ended.
"This is every year," Youkilis said when asked if he came in better prepared physically. "Do I look that bad?
"I mean, I'm not going to make excuses, but there was a couple of things that definitely contributed," he said, citing plantar fasciitis and a strained abdominal muscle near the end of the season. "I felt I was dragging a little bit at the end. It was very tough with so many guys down. There were so many injuries that there were a lot of us that had to play. But, all in all, there is no excuse to be made.
"The best thing about it is I learned. I learned from last year, learned what I had to do to take care of my body, and do the right things each day to basically have the same production as I had in the first half of last year."
Youkilis, who spent much of the season hitting leadoff, got off to a soaring start, hitting .318 with a .425 on-base percentage, 9 home runs, and 38 RBIs through June 28. From that point, he dipped to a .243 average, .338 OBP, 4 homers, and 34 RBIs. He had a miserable September, batting .216 with no homers and 7 RBIs.
But at the dawn of a new season, when everything is rosy, even in snow-covered New England, Youkilis is spending more time working through the new Red Sox roster (and an ear infection) than trying to justify his physical gifts. He's learning the proper way to bow to new teammates Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, realizing Japanese might be over his head -- "A lot of us are trying to get past the Spanish," he said -- and realizing he's coming in as a veteran with many of the questions from last season answered, especially those regarding his defense at a new position.
"It was frustrating for me when J.T. [Snow] would come in for defense," Youkilis said. "It wasn't that I was mad because I thought I was better than J.T., it was just frustrating because I thought I was playing great at first and I didn't want to get taken out for defensive reasons. But I understood. I was fine with dealing with the fact that J.T. Snow -- one of the best first basemen of all time -- was coming in. But I think after the period when I knew I had the job and I was in there in the late innings and in the ninth inning, that really hit me that I think this is the comfort level that I'm going to be here on a daily basis."
They converged in the parking lot, with Matsuzaka leaving and Okajima entering, around 11 a.m., went through a few introductory formalities, and went on their way. With their spring training lockers next to each other, they'll spend a lot more time together the next six weeks.
"He seemed very nice," Okajima said, through translator Sachiyo Sekiguchi. "It was good to see him."
That -- and the rest of the introductions, to teammates and manager Terry Francona -- might have been the best part of a day wracked with jet lag. Okajima said he couldn't fall asleep until 3 a.m. and awoke before 7, prompting a stroll around his neighborhood that just might become part of his routine.
Meanwhile, in between all that walking, Okajima is readying himself for the season.
"The shoulder, the condition, is good, but [I] have to work on it gradually," Okajima said. "Right now the whole body condition is not stable. Gradually I will work on it and it will come."
