Wait a minute, Youk's up

Last month, on the night before Kevin Youkilis returned from the disabled list, the Red Sox played a game against the Toronto Blue Jays that lasted a mere 2 hours 13 minutes. Apprised of that fact upon returning to the Boston clubhouse, Youkilis had a simple explanation.

"That's because I wasn't here," Youkilis cracked to one member of the Boston organization.

You know, he may be right.

Now that the man with the longest at-bats in the American League (4.48 pitches per plate appearance) has returned to the lineup, there is no remaining doubt: Time does not stop when Youkilis enters the batter's box, but it certainly slows down quite a bit. Youkilis has had 10 plate appearances in the first two games of the current three-game series with the New York Yankees, reaching base five times with two singles, two walks, and a home run. The homer was an impressive, opposite-field clout that ultimately provided the difference in last night's 6-5 win that placed the Sox solely atop the American League East.

But it is only a part of the story.

In his 10 plate appearances against the Yankees in this series, Youkilis has seen 52 pitches -- yes, 52 -- including 29 on Tuesday and 23 more last night. In five games against New York this year, he has walked six times (three intentional), including at least once in each game. Youkilis's on-base percentage against the Yankees this year is an insane .600, and the Yankees, like most everyone else at this point, simply have no idea how to get him out.

Hmmm.

"He's turned into such a good hitter," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said of Youkilis when asked about Youkilis's opposite-field homer that landed on the center field side of the Red Sox bullpen, no small feat for a righthanded hitter. "We've seen him in spring training since a long time ago. He's turned into one of the best hitters in the league. The real interesting thing is that he's learned how to hit for power without selling out to hit for power."

As usual, the manager is right. Take a look at Youkilis's slugging percentage beginning with the 2006 season, when he first became a full-time player. During that span, it has gone from .429 to .453 to .569 to his current .619. Meanwhile, his batting average has climbed from .279 to .288 to .312 to .350 while his on-base percentage has gone from .381 to .390 to .390 to .472. If the stock market could travel along a similar path of growth, American business would be booming again in no time.

In this particular series, we have had a perfect storm similar to the demonstration put forth by Bobby Abreu during a five-game series at Fenway Park almost immediately after Abreu joined the Yankees in 2006. During New York's infamous five-game sweep, Abreu went 10 for 20 with seven walks and a .630 on-base percentage; he saw 119 pitches in the series, an average of 23.8 per game and 4.41 per plate appearance. In that way, the Yankees of 2009 might consider themselves fortunate. After all, this week's meeting with the Sox is only a three-game set and ends tonight, meaning they will be done with Youkilis, at least for a time.

Can you imagine how long these games would be if Chien-Ming Wang had to face someone like Youkilis in every plate appearance? We're talking "Roots." Ken Burns couldn't create an epic that long.

Since he became a major league regular, Youkilis has an overall on-base percentage of .395. Against the Yankees, during that same time, his OBP is .449. Youkilis has seen a whopping 1,104 pitches over that span, more than any player on either team, meaning he has done as much to lengthen Red Sox-Yankees games as any extended commercial breaks on national networks.

Last night, when Youkilis came to bat in the fourth inning of what was then a 4-2 game, J.D. Drew was on third with one out. Wang already had departed, replaced by young righthander Phil Hughes. On a 2-0 pitch, Hughes threw a fastball that Youkilis belted into the bullpen, a most blatant demonstration of Youkilis's metamorphosis as a hitter. Three years ago, Youkilis might have turned that pitch into a sacrifice fly. Last night, he did what a locked-in Manny Ramirez might have done with it by belting it out of the deepest part of the ballpark.

After the game, in assessing the breadth of Youkilis's abilities as a hitter, Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan compared Youkilis to -- get this -- Edgar Martinez, the former Seattle Mariners designated hitter regarded as one of the best hitters of his era. Martinez was a career .312 hitter with a .418 on-base percentage and could drive the ball to all parts of the ballpark. Like Youkilis, Martinez also ran up pitch counts like a college student runs up credit card charges.

"He arrived in the big leagues as a guy who had a real good idea of the strike zone and hit a little gap to gap,'' Magadan said of Youkilis. "Now, when you take his ability to hit for power and add it to all those other things . . .''

Time all but stops.

And so long as your loyalties reside with the Red Sox, Kevin Youkilis is worth every second of the wait.