The ball dropped, and Luke Voit immediately thought triple, he said. He didn’t know when — or if — the chance would come again.
“I saw he hadn’t gotten to it yet, and I kind of just said, ‘Screw it, I’m going,’ ” Voit said. “I don’t get those very often.”
Leading off the bottom of the seventh Wednesday against the Padres, Voit hit a liner off former Yankees reliever Adam Warren to center field. It hung long enough for Manuel Margot to think he could make the catch, but his diving attempt failed and the ball rolled deep into the outfield.
The noise from the crowd grew louder. The anticipation surged. None of the four home runs the Stadium crowd witnessed would be as exciting.
The slow-moving first baseman sprinted towards second, and made the hard turn to third, just beating the throw with a slide, which left him with his first career regular-season triple in the majors. The milestone hit prompted laughter from Aaron Hicks in the dugout, as he imitated Voit’s chugging motion round the bases.
“We had a big lead, and it was an opportunity to take it,” Voit said following the Yankees’ 7-0 win. “If it would’ve been a different situation, I probably wouldn’t have gone, but I don’t get those opportunities very often. First career one, I’ll take it.”
Actually, Voit had tripled at Yankee Stadium before. In last year’s wild-card win over the Athletics, the first baseman delivered one of the game’s biggest hits with a two-run triple.
Voit came through right away Wednesday, following DJ LeMahieu’s leadoff home run with his 14th homer of the season. The 28-year-old’s shot to left-center field registered a 110.4 mph exit velocity, marking the hardest-hit ball San Diego starter Chris Paddack has allowed in his standout rookie season.
“It felt good. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing all year, giving our pitchers a lead,” said Voit, who went 2-for-5 with two runs. “DJ hit a changeup and I hit a fastball, and we just rolled through the lineup.”
Voit, who had a career-best 42-game on-base streak snapped May 3, now has 10 home runs and 23 RBIs in his past 33 games.
“It’s kind of repetitive, but that whole next man up, every guy that’s come up [Cameron] Maybin, Thairo [Estrada], Gio [Urshela], me, whoever, it’s been pretty impressive,” Voit said. “Whatever their job is, they come in those big situations and get the job done.”
Maybe Voit will soon realize he isn’t like the others anymore. Most did long ago.
