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The New York Yankees are off to a solid if not spectacular 8-7 start, good enough for first place in the American League East, after losing to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday. But they have had to do it without their 35-year-old designated hitter, now in the 11th season of his 13-year, $325 million contract, Giancarlo Stanton.
With 429 career home runs, plus another 18 in postseason play, Stanton has been a crucial piece of the Bronx Bombers’ offensive attack since they acquired him from the Miami Marlins in a trade after the 2017 season. But the 2007 second-round Marlins draft pick missed all of spring training and remains on the injured list 15 games into the regular season with painful, if somewhat mysterious, injuries to both elbows.
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On Sunday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone offered what he said was the latest information on Stanton’s status, but the update appeared to raise more questions than it answered.
According to MLB.com Yankees reporter Bryan Hoch, “Stanton is with the team in New York and continues to hit off the high-velocity Trajekt machine,” a reference to a high-tech pitching machine designed to replicate the movement of pitches from any major league hurler.
But the puzzling part came when Boone said, as quoted by Hoch, that Stanton is “starting to move around more outside.”
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“Did this guy get into a car accident?! Why are they talking like that?” wrote one Yankees fan on X (formerly Twitter) in response to Hoch’s post.
“Like a bear slowly waking from its winter slumber,” commented another fan.
“Dying laughing at that last part,” added a third fan, reflecting the general tone of online comments on Boone’s odd update.
Fortunately for the Yankees, Stanton’s replacement — second year DH and first baseman Ben Rice, a 2021 12th-round draft pick out of Ivy League Dartmouth — has been moving around outside pretty well himself.
Filling in for the 15-year veteran, Rice already has four home runs, a pair of doubles and a triple among his 14 hits in 56 plate appearances, appearing in 14 of the Yankees 16 games.
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