TORONTO – Aaron Boone’s work in the broadcast booth has no doubt given him a unique perspective about his New York Yankees. His experiences as a baseball lifer – three generations worth of it in his family – would, you think, also imbue him with an ability to get a read on players.
And while it’s hard to deem a guy a genius because he had a sense Giancarlo Stanton was “getting close” – I mean, when you get down to it how is a hitter such as Stanton ever that far away? – it’s nice to know that a guy’s gut instinct is functioning on opening day.
He told his general manager Brian Cashman before Thursday’s 6-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays that he thought Stanton was the guy to watch. His “pick to click,” in Cashman’s words.
Click.
Boom.
[snippet id=3918627]
Stanton wrote himself all over Boone’s first game as Yankees manager with a pair of home runs and a double, becoming the seventh Yankees hitter with a multi-homer opening day, and the first since Joe Pepitone in 1963. The four RBI were no big deal, either as he had had six four-plus RBI games in 2017, tied for the third-most in the Majors – he led the Majors in three-plus RBI games with 19.
Aaron Judge loves the Rogers Centre, where he’s hit four home runs in 38 at-bats but not as much, apparently, as Stanton who, including three inter-league games here when he was with the Miami Marlins, has five homers and two doubles in 17 at-bats.
So from all of us here in Toronto, thanks a heap there Derek Jeter.
“Good dimensions … yeah,” Stanton responded with a chuckle when asked about his success at the Rogers Centre.
“They’re up there,” Stanton said when he was asked where to put these two homers.
He’s hit 269 in 987 career games, after all, and only four players have hit more homers through 1,000 games: Ryan Howard (279), Ralph Kiner (277), Harmon Killebrew (272) and Juan Gonzalez (269).
“It’s an interesting feeling, man … similar to my first one ever. … I obviously hadn’t played as a Yankee. … Everything felt new. The newness of it felt like my first one.”
[snippet id=3305549]
So Stanton sailed through his first real test as a member of what will be Major League Baseball’s most exciting travelling road show. He did the political thing, making sure to allude to the fact his teams pitchers held the Blue Jays to two hits, and if that keeps up he’ll fit like a glove with Judge, who gave an early indication of channeling his inner Jeter when he was asked to compare Boone in a game to his predecessor, Joe Girardi.
“It was cool to be part of his first win,” Judge responded.
And?
“And … that’s about all I have to say.”
Boone was operating on more than just gut instinct when telling his boss that Stanton was ready to go.
“I felt like his at-bats and his timing … I felt like his at-bat quality the last week of spring training was really starting to tighten up,” said Boone. “He was starting to find his good timing. We started to see homers from him late in the spring and I felt all day like every pitch it seemed like he was in a really good place.
“When he gets on time, he’s deadly like that. You want guys peaking at the right time.”
Said Stanton: “It’s giving myself a chance. If I’m on time and I get my foot down and my barrel there, all I need is a chance.”
Stanton’s first blast was an opposite-field shot that was recorded with an exit velocity of 117.3 m.p.h., the fastest hit ever recorded at the Rogers Centre – bearing in mind they didn’t have this Statcast stuff when Carlos Delgado or Manny Ramirez were crushing bombs at this place – and was the hardest opposite-field blast recorded by Statcast.
Stanton made working to the opposite field a staple of his spring training batting practice. With only six of his 59 homers last season heading to right field and given Yankee Stadium’s inviting short right porch why wouldn’t you take aim, especially sandwiched between Judge and Gary Sanchez.
“With [Stanton], Aaron and Gary so good at hitting the ball the other way, they can mishit it and it will still leave the ballpark by a bunch,” said Boone. “What it does for those guys is it allows them to see the ball longer. You can allow it to go deeper into the zone. When they get on time, they’re usually taking pitches out of the zone because they can wait a little longer.”
And there you go: The youngest Yankees team since 1993 has its first win in the bag.
This is a team that sports the seventh-biggest payroll in the game with Manny Machado and/or Bryce Harper to come next season and a bunch of gilt-edged prospects just under the surface.
Heaven for a rookie manager, pin-striped Hell for the rest of us.
There might be a newness to all this for Stanton but I swear to the baseball gods I’ve seen this before.
[relatedlinks]