HELLO AGAIN
STANTON RETURNS, YANKS WIN
For nearly three months, Yankees fans thought about what it would be like when they got their sluggers back in the lineup. Tuesday night, they finally got Giancarlo Stanton back and it was just like he’d never been gone.
The slugger struck out twice in the Yankees 6-3 win over the Rays at the Stadium and was already hearing boos.
As they did in his absence, however, the Yankees found their power.
Cameron Maybin homered in his fourth straight game and Edwin Encarnacion got his first hit as a Yankee, appropriately the American League leading 22nd homer, as the Yankees (4527) won their fourth straight game. With the win, they clinched the series against the Rays (43-30) and extended their
lead over Tampa Bay in the ALEast to 2.5 games.
“It's how it goes,” Stanton said of the smattering of boos he heard after his strikeout with runners on the corners ended the Yankees' three-run fifth inning.
It may not have gone as scripted over the past few months as the Yankees thought about getting the stars back from their majorleague leading injured list. Stanton did not contribute to a lineup that is being compared to the Yankees Murderers' Row of the 1920s. The lineup gets even more potent with the return of Aaron Judge, who the Yankees confirmed could be back as soon as Friday.
But the Yankees got what the needed from Maybin, Encarnación, Gary Sánchez and DJ LeMahieu.
Maybin has homered in a career-high four straight games. It is tied for the longest streak by a Yankee since 2008 and the first four-game streak since Gleyber Torres did it last year. Still, the the veteran outfielder could be the odd man out in the roster crunch when the Yankees are ready to activate Judge off the injured list.
Maybin is making it a very hard decision if you ask his manager.
“He's been so awesome to have, and to have in that room, and what he means to those guys already, and just how well he's performed for us, I love the player,” Yankee manager Aaron Boone said.
He and Encarnación extended the Yankees' home run streak to 21 straight games, the longest in the majors since the Dodgers 23-games streak last season. It is the second longest in Yan- kees' history, behind 25 games in 1941.
It was the firsttime Encarnación was able to break out his “walking the parrot,” home run trot and his new teammates greeted him in the dugout with their one-wing up salute.
“I see after on the replays,” Encarnación said of the team's tribute. “It's all about having fun. That's what we need. Have fun and play the game right.”
Stanton went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
“OK, still kind of finding his way and finding his timing,” Boone said of Stanton's at-bats. “He'll get there. Yeah, just working his way back into kind of finding that timing.”
It had been 69 games since Boone had been able to put Stanton's name in the lineup.
“We have a lot of dynamic players and hitters and certainly Giancarlo is one of those,” Boone said. “Hopefully the length we have in that lineup makes it difficult on the opposing team and pitcher and obviously with Tampa here, we're facing one of the elite staffs, which makes it hard on you, but hopefully he can have at-bats that pay dividends for us.”
In the absence of their star sluggers, however, the Yankees still managed to hit homers and find other ways to score and win. Even Tuesday night, they based their three-run rally in the fifth on five straight singles.
Sánchez brought in two runs, the first run of the night on a sacrifice fly, and the fourth with a single in the fifth. LeMahieu improved to 29-for-62 (.483) and 35 RBI hitting with runners in scoring position with a fifthinning RBI single. Luke Voit also drove in two.
“That team is very good at limiting runs and I just thought our at-bats in that inning were really strong,” Boone said. “That's been a theme for us a lot. We've done our fair share of striking out this year and I know that's always a subject with our team, but I feel like we've done a really good job in spots of really coming up with tough two-out, two-strike at-bats in some big spots.”