Yanks batter Birds
Yankees ride Hicks’ blasts, rookie’s arm to 3rd straight win
Aaron Judge is unquestionably the biggest reason the Yankees are leading the AL East.
Yet where do you think they would be if Aaron Hicks were the same player he was a year ago, when he was two-plus months into what would be a nightmare first season in pinstripes?
This season, Hicks has teamed with Judge to form a muscular tag team that is terrorizing pitchers with productive bats.
“It feels good to get off to a hot start,’’ Hicks said after swatting two home runs and driving in three runs in the Yankees’ 8-2 win over the Orioles on Friday night in front of a sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd of 46,031. “Last season, I got myself in a hole.’’
A winter of work to shorten his swing has made a big difference, and in 154 at-bats, Hicks has more homers (10) and RBIs (34) this year than last, when he hit eight homers and drove in 31 runs in 327 at-bats.
And his batting average difference is .318 this season to .217 in 2016.
“We all know what he is capable of. He is a five-tool player,” catcher Austin Romine said of the switch-hitting Hicks, who has excelled since taking over for Jacoby Ellsbury in center field. “He worked hard and cleaned up some things in the offseason.”
Hicks’ two homers and Starlin Castro’s blast supported another solid outing from rookie lefty Jordan Montgomery and carried the Yankees to a third straight victory. The win allowed the 35-23 Yankees to remain three lengths ahead of the secondplace Red Sox in the AL East.
Montgomery won a second straight and is 4-4 after limiting the O’s to two runs and five hits in seven innings. After giving up a two-run homer to Jonathan Schoop and singles to J.J. Hardy and Ruben Tejada in the second, Montgomery retired 17 of the final 18 batters he faced.
Hicks, who had been 1-for-11, since being moved into the No. 2 spot in the order Wednesday, when Joe Girardi dropped Gary Sanchez to the six hole, homered off right-hander Dylan Bundy to lead off the sixth and snap a 2-2 tie. An inning later, he crushed a two-run homer off Edwin Jackson to highlight a three-run frame that pushed the lead to 6-2. The Yankees added two more in the eighth on Romine’s single.
The Yankees have no timetable for Ellsbury to return from a concussion that has kept him on the disabled list since May 25. Ellsbury isn’t participating in baseball activities yet after the headaches returned last week. So it’s not as if he will be coming back real soon.
Yet Ellsbury likely will be cleared to play at some point, and that will cause a dilemma for Girardi, who will have three outfielders for two spots.
“He is going to play a lot, that’s the bottom line, when [Ellsbury] comes back,” Girardi said of Hicks, who started the game hitting .315, ninth in the AL batting race. “At some point, I am going to have to give [Brett Gardner] a day off, I am going to have to give Judge a day off and give Hicks a day off. But [Hicks] is going to continue to get a ton of at-bats.”
Judge may be the straw that stirs the Yankees’ drinks these days, but Hicks is the guy filling the glass.