Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long refuses to believe that Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira have lost their stroke at the plate. "I can't come to terms with a guy declining or not being what they're supposed to be," Long said. "I won't do it. I remember us talking about Derek Jeter last year, people just basically destroying him, and I wouldn't accept it. "And I'm not going to accept Alex Rodriguez or Mark Teixeira. They're better than this. They're going to work their tails off, and they're going to get it done." Teixeira often likes to speak about the numbers on the back of his baseball card to assure that at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs will be there at the end of the season; over the last eight years, he hasn't been proven incorrect. "Fellas, he's not done. Not by any stretch of the imagination," Long said. "He's going to be just fine. He's going through a bad spell, and he needs to get out of it."