Stanton won’t be an All-Star
BALTIMORE — Giancarlo Stanton finished third in the Final Vote for the last spot on the AL All-Star team for next Tuesday night’s game in Washington, and it didn’t come off as if it bothered him.
“It’s all right, I have been an AllStar before,’’ Stanton said following Wednesday night’s 9-0 win over the Orioles at Camden Yards.
Stanton was a four-time All-Star with the Marlins, including last year, when he went on to win the NL MVP award.
Mariners shortstop Jean Segura was the AL winner of the Final Vote and was followed by Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi. Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar won the NL vote.
Stanton went 4for-5 with two RBIs Wednesday night and is hitting .276 with 22 homers and 54 RBIs. Aaron Boone grabbed a seat next to Aroldis Chapman’s locker in the clubhouse before the game and chatted with his All-Star closer, who is battling tendinitis in his left knee and hasn’t pitched since being removed from Saturday’s game at Toronto.
“He is good to go,” Boone said. “I like to check in with him every day.”
Chapman wasn’t needed in the 9-0 blowout.
Asked how he will balance getting Chapman an inning to keep the rust off and possibly aggravating the knee, Boone said: “I don’t feel we are at the point where I feel I need to get him an inning. If he is in there tonight it’s because we need him in there or it is a save situation.’’
Boone said he doesn’t know if Chapman will pitch in the All-Star Game.
Boone didn’t have a definitive date for Gary Sanchez to participate in a minor league game, which is the next step for the catcher, who could come off the DL when the Yankees face the Mets next Friday at Yankee Stadium. However, the manager continues to be encouraged by the progress Sanchez has made lately.
“He is doing really well and ran a lot today,’’ Boone said of Sanchez, who also threw to bases and took batting practice on the field for a second straight day. “We haven’t made a plan where he is going, but I would say he is getting close.’’
The Yankees dodged a big bullet during batting practice when a ball off Miguel Andu
jar’s bat came close to hitting Stanton in the upper body. Stanton was running in shallow left field and danced out of the way at the last second.
Wednesday night’s game marked the 3,000th of Buck
Showalter’s career game as a big league manager. He is the 22nd in major league history to manage at least 3,000 regular-season games. Greg Bird’s third-inning grand slam was the Yankees’ 152nd homer of the season and set a MLB record for homers by a team before the All-Star break. Tyler Wade and Austin Romine extended the record with homers later in the game.
Bernie Williams sees similarities between this current Yankees and the championship clubs he played for that won four World Series titles — with one exception.
“Definitely it reminds me a lot of those teams except for the fact that this team right now has a lot more power than we used to have. We’ve got guys now that are capable of hitting 50-plus home runs. I don’t think we had a guy like that back when I was playing,” Williams said before performing the National Anthem at the Eastern League Double-A AllStar Game in Trenton, N.J., “Everybody was spread across the board. [In 1998, Scott] Brosius, our ninth hitter, was the World Series MVP so everything was spread across the board in the lineup not a lot of weak spots. Which is kind of like these guys are except these guys can hit the ball out at will.”
Williams called the current young Yankees “very impressive. I don’t think we had a group of guys that were together coming into the team and making a splash as they have except for the guys that came maybe 20 years before that: Andy Pettitte, Jorge
Posada, Mariano [ Rivera] and Derek [ Jeter]. … This crew is very similar pitching-wise, a nice mix of veterans and young players, but the lineup is just as good as any lineup in the league. Probably both leagues.”