In the recent three-game sweep against the Minnesota Twins, the New York Yankees were 11-or-38 with runners in scoring position. That’s all you need to know about the recent play of this team.
The Yankees became the first American League team to reach 30 wins shutting out the Twins 5-0 on Thursday. In another promising start, Clarke Schmidt is going deeper into games finishing the sweep with 8 innings and eight strikeouts outing.
Recently, the main topic of discussion was Aaron Judge’s struggles. Forgetting about the season’s grind, fans harped on the right fielder with every strikeout. With Juan Soto starting the season red hot, the spotlight on Judge became hotter. Judge now has a higher OPS (.948) than Soto (.920) who’s come back to earth.
But the Yankees, and most of the league, know that barring injury Soto will be progressing back to the mean soon.
With the talk of “load management” coming to baseball, Judge and Soto haven’t missed a single game during the season. It has contributed significantly to the team’s success. Slump or no slump their presence is a consistent threat to pitchers allowing the rest of the lineup to feast. Both hitters can work through their slumps instead of taking a day off to regroup.
Speaking of regrouping, New York Yankees Owner Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t want Soto to regroup at the end of the season. During a YES Network podcast, the owner said he wants Soto to remain a Yankee his entire career.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. His agent, Scott [Boras], doesn’t tend to normally do deals in the middle of a season,” said Steinbrenner. “Neither do I. I think it can be a distraction. But as I said in Spring Training when I met with [the media], this is a unique situation and a very unique player. “So, I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a conversation or two had possibly during the course of the season.”
“I think it’s worth doing at some point,” Steinbrenner continued. “I wanted to give Juan time to settle in, have a conversation with him at some point, and make sure that obviously the most important thing is, is this a place he can see himself for a long time?”
Considering that Judge and Soto have traded off each other’s slumps, the Yankees being the first to 30 wins will be the least of the American League’s worries.
