It’s hard to tell what was more impressive about Jason Giambi’s dramatic game-winning home run in the bottom of the 10th inning last night – the fact that Giambi had his first big hit in recent memory, or that he continued his recent pattern of hitting home runs at very regular intervals of a month. Before last night, his last long ball was on May 17, and the last one before that was on April 19. At this rate, Giambi is due to knock his next one out of the park in Fenway the weekend of July 15. That wouldn’t be bad timing, but a home run per month really isn’t what you look for in a first baseman.

More shocking than Giambi’s monthly home run patterns, though, was a fact pointed out this week by Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, who noted that Giambi was on pace to score 39 runs despite his .383 on-base average.

“Thirty-nine runs!” I thought to myself upon reading Verducci’s column Tuesday. “That can’t be right.” Indeed, it was not: Between the time the article was published and the time I checked out the facts for myself, Giambi had upped his on-base average to .388 and put himself on pace to score 41 runs.

Nonetheless, a quick bit of investigation revealed that Giambi has a real shot at history. As you can see in the accompanying chart, he may score fewer runs than anyone with his playing time and on-base average has since baseball was integrated in 1947.

Of course, anyone who’s watched the Yankees this year may be surprised to learn that Giambi is on pace to score even 41 runs. These days, the former American League MVP is the no-tool player – he can’t hit for average, can’t hit for power, can’t field, can’t throw, and above all, he can’t run. Other than the occasional upper-deck homer, the man has one skill and one skill only: drawing walks. As his historically low runs total shows, those walks aren’t really doing the Yankees all that much good.

The question, then, is whether Giambi’s awful base running is wiping out the value he provides the team with his ability to get on base (though he doesn’t have enough plate appearances at this point to qualify for the batting title, Giambi’s .388 OBA going into last night’s game would rank him ninth in the league and third on the Yankees behind Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield). Seeking to provide a fair answer to this question, I went through the play-byplay results of every Yankees game since May 1 to see just how many runs Giambi’s running has cost the team. This covered 19 games in which he got on base, and 34 total times on base.

I was expecting some staggering total – perhaps including instances of Giambi drawing a walk and not scoring when the next man up hit a home run. But as it turned out, I found exactly one occasion in all those games where Giambi was on second or third and didn’t score on a base hit.

In truth, no matter how bad Giambi looks on the basepaths, there’s not a lot of reason to think he’s costing the team a tremendous amount of runs with his running. On three occasions, he didn’t reach third from first on a single, but even Rickey Henderson couldn’t always do that, and there were also two occasions when Giambi did. There were three occasions when he was out on a play where the batter hit into a fielder’s choice, but that isn’t always the runner’s fault, either.

On two occasions, Giambi was on first and didn’t score on a double, but again, you can’t expect the runner to always score in that situation. And there were six separate instances of Giambi advancing on errors, throws home, sacrifice flies, and fielder’s choices. I don’t see any way one could argue that Giambi has scored anything more than two or three fewer runs than an average runner would have in the games I examined. That equates to 10 or so runs over the course of the season, which is bad – it’s worth about a game in the standings – but also doesn’t quite explain historically poor runscoring.

What to conclude from this? The truth is that Giambi’s baserunning is a big diversion from the real issue, which is that he can’t hit. In the games since May 1, he’s had only three extra-base hits. Having watched many of those games, I’m not buying any argument that his inability to run is preventing him from racking up doubles. The man can’t hit the ball hard consistently, and that’s the problem here.

Going into last night’s game, he had a slugging average of .350, which would be atrocious at any position, let alone DH or first base. Turn nine of his singles into doubles, and that would rise to .417 – still bad, but vaguely tolerable. It would also put him on second nine more times, which would give him nine more chances to score on a single. The lack of those doubles, leave alone the home runs the former slugger isn’t hitting, is what’s leading to him not scoring.

Basically, the Yankees have two options. The first is to release Giambi, which I think they should do. He can’t play baseball, and he’s the symbol of this poorly conceived team. Admit the mistake, get rid of him, and move on.

If they’re not prepared to do that and Joe Torre insists on playing him, he has to hit leadoff or second. When in the lineup, Giambi has batted mostly in the no. 6 slot, most often followed by Jorge Posada. The Yankees’ no. 7 hitters have slugged .415, the no. 8 hitters .384, and the no. 9 hitters .362, all of which are around the league average, so it’s not as if the hitters behind Giambi are notably power-deficient and thus prone to leaving him stranded on the bases.

Nonetheless, Giambi’s ability to take pitches and reach first base would have more value at the top of the lineup, because Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield, unlike Robinson Cano, hit home runs. This would also be preferable to batting Tony Womack atop the order. Despite Womack’s OBA being more than 100 points lower than Giambi’s, and despite the fact that he has even less power, he’s on pace to score twice as many runs as Giambi; that’s due more to the hitters behind him than to his speed.

There’s also the fact that if Giambi is working the pitcher into deep counts, the bench can see what the opposing thrower is doing. I don’t think any of this would make him significantly more valuable, but they would help, and the Yankees need every bit of help they can get right now.