PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. _ It's game-on in what by far will be the most interesting, and watched, competition of Yankees spring training.
A day after Greg Bird roped a pair of hits, including a double, on Saturday in his first start of the spring, Luke Voit, considered the front-runner after his impressive power display late last season but resolved to demonstrate that wasn't "a fluke," had his turn Sunday.
The hulking 28-year-old, built more like a linebacker and a phenomenon after the Yankees acquired him in an under-the-radar deal before last year's trade deadline, went 2-for-3 with four RBIs in a 8-5 victory over the Rays. His afternoon included a monstrous three-run homer in the fourth inning off righty Ryne Stanek on a 0-and-1 fastball that arrived at 96 mph and departed much faster to left-center.
In his first at-bat of the spring, the 6-foot-3, 225-pound Voit lined a 1-and-0, 97-mph fastball from Rays righty Tyler Glasnow to right for an RBI single.
"Good start for him," Aaron Boone said.
There has been plenty of talk this spring about how motivated and determined Bird entered the spring. But Voit showed up just as determined and motivated. He did not spend the offseason congratulating himself on the work he did late last season after taking the starting job from Bird, when he hit .351 with a 1.190 OPS and 14 homers from Aug. 24 to the end of the season.
"I feel like everyone thinks last year was a fluke probably," Voit said after coming out of Sunday's game. "But I'm not going to let anyone else control (what I think of myself). Obviously I'm going to do what I can do to get the job done and be the first baseman for the Yankees."
It's an attitude Boone picked up on almost immediately when talking to Voit in the offseason.
"Luke wants to be really good at this game," Boone said. "I think we all saw him really kind of fall in love with being a Yankee, and I think he went home on a mission to make sure he comes in and is prepared and wanting to show the world that he is the guy we saw last year."
It's difficult to find a talent evaluator, including Boone, who doesn't think Bird is the better defender, but that's an element of Voit's game he worked on this winter. Part of that was a visit to Tampa and the club's minor-league complex in early December to work with Carlos Mendoza, the club's infield coach. In the bottom of the first inning Sunday, Voit made a clean scoop on a one-hop ground smash off the bat of leadoff man Austin Meadows and smoothly made the unassisted play.
"We have these iPads and he sent me a bunch of information on drills that I could do throughout the offseason to work on my timing, work on different moves to make the right step so I could get to those balls three or four more feet to my left or right," Voit said. "It was great to have that. I never really took my defense that serious, I was always hitting, now it's something I want to match 50-50."
Voit said later: "My goal this year is to obviously win a World Series but to make my defense night and day. I want to win a Gold Glove. That's kind of my mindset."
As is all but ignoring the offseason proclamations of GM Brian Cashman and Boone, who both said all winter Voit had "a leg up" on Bird going into spring training.
"I'm trying to do what I did last year and prove to everyone it wasn't a fluke," said Voit, again using that word. "Obviously it's nice to have Cash and Boone to have your back like that, which gives me a lot of confidence. But I just have to take it day by and try to get better."
