Sweet swinger

Youkilis starting season in style

MLB. Kevin Youkilis is quickly gaining a reputation around the big leagues as a rabbit out of the baseball starting gate.

The 29-year-old first baseman doesn’t ever have to endure slumps or ride out glorious hot streaks with the glove — as his 198 consecutive errorless games at first base would attest — but Youk’s hot and cold tendencies at the plate is becoming the stuff of legend around Fenway.

Youkilis entered last night batting a team-high .400 for the Sox, which also ranked him among the top 10 in the American League thus far this season. The bearded hitting machine has already collected a pair of three-hit games on the young 2008 season, and he’s stroked as many triples this season (two) as he amassed over the last two years combined.

“I’d just say right now [I’m] just getting some hits and just basically putting some good at-bats together,” said Youkilis. “There’s times when you’re swinging the bat well, and you’re getting hits.

“There’s times when you’re not swinging the bat well, and you’re [still] getting hits,” added Youkilis. “Right now, I’m just trying to concentrate.”

That concentration seems to rise to an elite level in the early going of a season, as attested by a .291 batting average in April last season and an even more impressive .402 batting average in May.

Obviously the good comes along with a bit of bad, and Youkilis is the not-so-proud owner of a career .245 batting average during the season’s second-half. The post-All-Star-break swoon might always be an inevitability given the high-motor that Youkilis always plays with, so the Sox will simply enjoy another springtime batting binge courtesy of their hot-hitting first baseman.

“For me, I play the game the same way every day, from Game One to Game 162,” said Youkilis, who has averaged an astounding 4.34 pitches per plate appearance over the last two seasons. “Sometimes it falls my way.”