Unusual times for the Yankees
Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney fill a void and power a 4-2 victory over Mariners
NEW YORK – Jake Bauers and Billy McKinney weren’t in the Yankees’ 2023 plans, and who cares about that now?
Aaron Judge is out until who-knowswhen, Giancarlo Stanton is adrift, Oswaldo Cabrera is at Scranton, Aaron Hicks – remember him? – is tearing it up at Baltimore, and we’re five weeks away from the trade deadline.
So, Bauers and McKinney are the best in-house corner outfielders at Yankee Stadium, and they each homered in Wednesday night’s 4-2 Yankees win against the Seattle Mariners.
That’s two homers for McKinney in two nights, two narrow-ish wins against the mediocre Mariners.
It’s the sixth homer this year by Bauer, who joined McKinney on the list of non-roster spring training invitees back in February, essentially part of a stockpile of lefty outfield bats for a rainy day.
Well, that day is here, and the Yanks will take any offensive punch where they can get it.
Yankees getting punch from other places
They had just five hits on Wednesday night, so it was almost essential that three of them left the ballpark – the two
JOHN MINCHILLO/AP
by Bauers (two-run shot) and McKinney (solo) coming against Luis Castillo.
The same Luis Castillo the Yankees desperately wanted from Cincinnati last summer and couldn’t get because of the price in prospects, namely Anthony Volpe.
That was Volpe going deep late in Wednesday’s game, too, his 10th of the year, and as GM Brian Cashman essentially said Tuesday, the rookie is here to stay at shortstop.
It’s up to the veteran talent, being paid tens of millions, to lift the Judgeless offense and support a pitching staff that saw a nice start by rookie Jhony Brito in his return Wednesday, a scoreless effort into the sixth inning.
They needed Gerrit Cole and his
moxy – and a two-run homer by McKinney – to claim a 3-1 victory on Tuesday night, with big parts of their lineup either missing or slumping.
DJ LeMahieu was on the bench again Wednesday, and he was joined by Giancarlo Stanton, as they work through timing-rhythm-mechanical issues in long, early pregame sessions.
In the meantime, Aaron Boone has to keep playing the hot hands where he can, and that certainly means Bauers and McKinney against right-handed pitching.
Yankees replacements coming through
It’s tougher now to replace Josh Donaldson, but he’s not here just for his excellent defense at third base.
He’s also replaced Hicks as the Bronx’s favorite target for Bronx cheers with every strikeout or double play grounder.
But if this keeps up, the Yankees will be forced into a trade upgrade, or hope that Cabrera finds something at Triple-A and comes back as a contributor.
Or better yet, LeMahieu gets it going again and becomes the mainstay at third base, because the Yanks are simply better when he’s regularly in the lineup, getting on base and driving balls to the gaps.
But we haven’t seen that version of LeMahieu for a while.
And we only seem to get the lockedin version of Stanton for a relatively short stint (and some of those have come in postseason) before a retreat to empty at-bats and strikeouts.
It was actually a tough break Wednesday, when the Yankees lost Willie Calhoun – another of this spring’s non-roster lefty bats – to a quad injury that could shelve him for a month.
Calhoun batted third for the Yankees on Wednesday night, and he’s both a contact hitter and power threat, and therefore a player of significance on a team that, under normal circumstances, he’d have trouble finding starts.
In the meantime, Bauers – with 13 of his last 18 hits going for extra bases - and McKinney – batting .317 in 12 games - will keep getting playing time in these unusual times.