Thumbs up for Frazier
ALITTLE Jersey attitude goes a long way. Thumbs down for the Yankees. That’s a really good thing.
Todd Frazier gives the “thumbs down’’ sign when he gets a hit, a positive message he sends back to the Yankee dugout.
Thursday night at Yankee Stadium it was a Thumbs Down Parade as Frazier crushed a threerun home run, his 25th, in the first inning and doubled in his second at-bat, reaching base four times.
He watched Aaron Judge, the instigator of the Thumbs Down brigade, blast his 42nd and 43rd home runs and catcher Gary Sanchez hit his 31st — the most ever by a Yankees catcher — in a 13-5 wipeout of the Orioles.
The Yankee Stadium sound system was down in the six-run first, so Frazier’s crack of the bat could be heard clearly as the ball sailed over the centerfield fence.
The thumbs down stems from a home run Frazier hit in the Yankees’ 5-1 win over the Rays Monday night at Citi Field. The sign was given by a fan rooting against the Yankees, who after the blast made the Roman Empire gesture caught by TV cameras.
Bingo. Frazier and Judge ran with it.
“Judge actually brought it up to me, saying, maybe I should do it during the game,’’ Frazier told The Post Thursday. “I said, ‘All right I’m going to do it.’ I told the [Rays] first baseman [Logan] Morrison, ‘This is not directed towards you guys, tell your pitchers I’m not trying to show anybody up.’
“I guess that is going to be my new thing from now on,’’ said the Toms River East American Little League legend.
Said rookie Clint Frazier: “It’s pretty funny how that is our new little team mojo. It came from that Mets fan who was giving us that sign and we turned into our thing now. Todd is a leader, man, it’s awesome to see how vocal he is, whether in the clubhouse or the field. He gives us that veteran leadership with a kid’s personality.’’ Judge was standing in the dugout giving Frazier the thumbs down sign when Frazier homered and Frazier returned the favor after Judge’s home runs as did Yankee teammates.
“Seeing that fan who did that, it was pretty comical, so I thought it would be a good thing for Fraze to do, and it kind of caught on with the whole team,’’ Judge said.
The Yankees are showing more personality and mental toughness. Frazier has gotten some huge hits, and joined Josh Donaldson and Kyle Seager as the only third basemen with at least 20 home runs each of the past four seasons. He has at least one RBI in seven of his past 10 games.
When the Yankees acquired Frazier, David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle from the White Sox they were 47-44. They’ve gone 33-22 since, and Frazier owns an .805 OPS.
“We got a lot of clutch guys, whether we have to do it in one [wild-card] game, so be it, but we are ready to win this division,’’ Frazier said.
“The mental toughness, I always had that. It started with my dad to my brothers. That’s the thing that separates good ballplayers from great ones, I think.”
It’s about winning the division, Frazier, 31, noted. The Yankees remain three back of Boston in the loss column.
“We talk about it all the time,’’ he said. “We’re having fun but at the same time we understand the complexity of what’s going on. We have a good mix. [Brett] Gardner told me the other day, ‘Pretty soon you guys will be on my back.’ I said, ‘That’s fine with me. Guess what? Until then you are going to be on my back.’ We’re kind of on the same page — you go, we go.”
It remains to be seen where Frazier, a free agent after the season, will wind up, but he would love to stay with the Yankees. “I feel at home here,’’ he said. The more Frazier can give the thumbs down sign, the better for his Yankees.