Posted by Michael Street on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 1:34 am

Losing Hideki Matsui last season was just one of the potholes that crippled the mighty Yankees juggernaut. On top of Chien-Ming Wang and Jorge Posada, no more Matsui meant they were losing one of their most consistent RBI producers, a guy who could be counted on for 100 RBI—assuming he remained healthy.

In each of the years 2003-2005, Matsui played in nearly every game for the Yanks, leading all of baseball in games played for those three seasons. In that time, he averaged a line of .297/.370/.484, with 23 HRs and 110 RBIs. Not quite elite territory, but close, and certainly consistent.

He missed 2006 with a brutal wrist injury reminiscent of the one that recently felled Jay Bruce. Sliding in to get a sinking liner, Matsui caught his glove in the turf and slid over his left hand, snapping his wrist. Amazingly, he got up, his hand flopping at his side and ran to the left-field fence to retrieve the ball and throw it in. Only then did he collapse in pain. He would be out for three months, in the process breaking his streak of 512 consecutive games played.

When he returned in 2007, some wondered if he’d have the same power and production. He played less in 2007, appearing in 143 games mostly in left field with an occasional start at DH, and finished with a solid .285/.367/.488 line, hitting 25 HRs and garnering 103 RBI. That answered any questions about his ability to return to his pre-injury levels.

Similar questions surrounded him this year, as he returned from the knee surgery that sidelined him for a big chunk of 2008. He’d gone on the DL on June 23 last season, and then made a valiant attempt to return and help his faltering Yankees, but Godzilla hit more like “Gojira Jyunia,” Baby Godzilla, putting together an un-Matsui-like line of .209/.269/.326 as the DH. At the end of the season, he elected for knee surgery, which would hold him back this year as well.

Going into 2009, the Yanks announced that he would be their everyday designated hitter and not play the outfield until late in the season, if at all. This not only disappointed Matsui, it clogged up a vital spot for an aging team.

Johnny Damon and Jorge Posada both benefited from being used in that slot in the past, but DH was the only way to get Godzilla’s bat in the lineup. It also hurt the Yanks even more when Xavier Nady went down for the season for Tommy John surgery, stretching the outfield even thinner.

Girardi has given Matsui his rest this year, playing him 3-4 times a week, rotating the spot among A-Rod, Teixiera, Damon, Posada, Jeter, and Swisher (and Nady, when he was healthy). The effects have been so-so; going into the final round of interleague play, Matsui was hitting .249/.344/.472, with 10 HRs and 28 RBI in 59 games.

Not bad, but not up to his usual standards, both in batting average and RBI. His contact rate had slipped from  .86 to .82, and his BABIP had plummeted from a career .305 to .257, signifying either a run of bad luck or the fact that he wasn’t hitting the ball that hard. Additionally, his RBIs per game dropped from .15/PA to .12.

Then came the Yankees’ stretch of interleague play, which Matsui had to watch from the bench, ten days of getting up only to pinch-hit eight times, collecting one single and two walks. The time, however, might have done him some good.

Since returning to the regular lineup on June 30, Matsui has been clubbing opposing pitchers at a gaudy .387/.500/.871 rate, including 3 HRs in 4 days against the Mariners and Blue Jays. And he’s back to his RBI-hitting ways, with an equally robust small-sample space of .30 RBI/PA.

He started 9 of those 11 games, sitting out entirely for two more, so it’s not like he played every day, but his stroke is, according to him, as good as it’s ever been.

Of course, there are plenty of explanations for his post-interleague play surge: small sample space, temporary energy from the time off, even the homer-friendly confines of Yankee Stadium (his OPS is 1.712 at home during that stretch, compared to “just” .906 on the road). And now that the All-Star break is giving him more time off, we might see him maintain that surge for at least the next week or two.

But will it continue for the rest of the season? And, as importantly, will he continue to clog up the DH spot or get out in left field once in a while?

As to his playing time, Girardi has given no indication that Matsui will leave the DH spot anytime soon. At the start of the season, he said it would be at least June until Matsui might put on a glove during the game. Now that month has come and gone, and the chances for seeing him get there diminish. He did says that he’d contemplated using him in the field for interleague play, but that the circumstances never arose.

Certainly before he can get out in the field, he needs to prove that he can DH and do it more often than 3-4 times a week, something Girardi has yet to allow him to do. The next few weeks after the break are going to tell us a lot, particularly if Eric Hinske can continue his hot hitting; acquiring the veteran corner outfielder (and potential DH) might tip the Yankees’ hands a bit as to Matsui’s future.

For now, he needs to be content to produce where he is right now, and that’s in the DH spot. Even if he’s not entirely happy with it, there’s a larger picture to consider. Before Ichiro, most people didn’t think a Japanese player could hit in MLB; after he showed that wasn’t true, those same people argued he was an exception, or that NPB players couldn’t hit for power.

Now, we have Hideki Matsui in the position that rewards pure hitters, and he’s responded with 126 career HRs 190 2Bs and 547 RBI. And each time he adds to those totals, more critics realize that maybe there’s a place for Asian hitters after all.