Yankees in awe of Stanton power surge
OAKLAND — Giancarlo Stanton is in one of those grooves.
He found a similar one last year in the playoffs, when the 6-6 former Home Run Derby champ drove in 13 runs in seven games. This current one is also a small sample size, but it’s had an enormous impact on the Yankees’ season-saving win streak.
Stanton has a home run in both of the team’s first two games in Oakland. Heading into Saturday, he’s smoked a home run in each of the last four games. Friday’s 472foot explosion off his bat prompted teammate Kyle Higashioka to say that watching Stanton home runs is his favorite thing in all of baseball.
It’s hard not to marvel at some of the balls he hits, and Stanton himself says that when he re-watches his at-bats as part of his nightly film study, he sometimes sees the slack-jawed reactions from his own dugout.
“You see some funny little tidbits there,” Stanton chuckled. “That’ll be part of my right before bed homework.”
Players often attribute good stretches of play to simplifying things or the feeling that the game has slowed down. Stanton offered similar platitudes after Friday night’s win, while also shouting out some of the recent technological advancements that help him appreciate his handiwork even more.
“I’m seeing the ball well, being quick,” he chose as reasons for being so locked in recently. “I just try to make sure my barrel gets there and not try to swing with my body.”
When the barrel does get there, it goes a famously long way, which he is very aware of.
“Luckily we have all these extra stats and cool things,” he said when confronted with some of his Statcast numbers. “When it’s all said and done it will be some pretty cool things to look at.”
In the last two weeks alone,
Stanton has roped six home runs that screamed off his bat at at least 105 miles per hour. The blazing exit velocities are not surprising for one of the undisputed kings of Statcast. What has been a bit surprising though is how swiftly he recovered from a .214 July where he knocked two home runs and struck out in 31 of his 97 plate appearances (31.9%).
“He’s really controlling the strike zone,” Aaron Boone said on Friday night. “He’s been on time and balanced, and then he’s making really good swing decisions. When he does that, you see the ball exit the bat at a really high rate of speed. He’s really executing his game plan at a high level right now.”
During the Yankees’ spotless 13-game romp through the league, Stanton has clubbed the ball left, right and center. He’s hitting .348 during the streak and has also shown no issues defensively after not playing the field at all in 2020 or the first half of the 2021 season. It’s just another thing that’s going right for the Yankees since they left Iowa, where they suffered their most recent defeat on Aug. 12.
“We’re clicking on all cylinders,” said Stanton. “We’re grinding away at the opponent. We’ve discussed what it took to get here and how we’ve all fed off each other, the work that we’ve all put in. It’s cool to see it develop.”
Not many players can develop results like Stanton though. He is, undeniably, the player that makes those around him revert to childlike admiration the most when they see him turn it on.
“He’s obviously so talented,” Boone guffawed. “He’s kind of different than anyone.”
“There’s not a single other person that has the ball come off their bat the same way he does,” Higashioka said giddily. “[Aaron] Judge hits the crap out of the ball — he hits it just as hard — but for some reason Big G hits, like, a two iron every time.”