PHOENIX — Even with big power bats on the injured list, the Yankees’ calling card remains home runs. There are oceans of voices who believe the Yankees have relied on the homer too much, but they have fallen on ears that don’t listen in The Bronx.
Get on base and go deep. That’s the business model and it is not changing no matter how loud the noise.
Yet, due to being without Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Miguel Andujar and Didi Gregorius and their replacements being nowhere near the home-run threats they are, the Yankees have scored runs thanks to stealing bases and more aggressive base running.
They still hit the ball over walls — 19 in the last 13 games entering Tuesday — and in Luke Voit and Gary Sanchez have legitimate power bats with Gleyber Torres emerging in that department. Yet in that same stretch the Yankees swiped 13 bases compared to four in the initial 15 games of the season.
“Trying to take advantage of certain matchups that we feel we can exploit. Having personnel capable of doing different things. People with different skill sets,’’ Aaron Boone said. “You always try every day to be prepared who we are running out there, who can we take advantage of. That’s part of all of our jobs, to uncover those advantages. I think the guys have done a really good job of executing in different situations. Whether it is the run game, bunting for hits. A lot of little things those guys have done really well.’’
The Yankees are never going to resemble the marbles-in-the-bathtub type attack of the Angels in the early 2000s or the Cardinals in the ’80s when you got dizzy watching them go first to third and second to home. The Yankees don’t have that type of speed. Nor do they have the prototypical leadoff hitter in DJ LeMahieu.
Brett Gardner has hit first more than anybody else, but lately he has been hitting third and sixth. He has three steals, which is tied for second with Torres. Tyler Wade leads with five.
The Yankees entered Tuesday night’s game against the Diamondbacks tied for seventh in the majors with 18 steals, the same as the Indians. An indication of picking the right time to run is they have been caught a major league-low twice.
It is very clear that Mike Tauchman isn’t Judge, Wade isn’t Stanton and Gio Urshela isn’t Andujar when it comes to power, so other ways have to be used to score runs, which the Yankees continue to do since they were tied for fourth in the majors with 155 entering Tuesday night’s action. The Diamondbacks and Cardinals had also scored 155.
What the Yankees’ lineup has done since the big bats went on the shelf is display balance. Without Hicks, Stanton, Gregorius and Andujar, the Yankees had won 11-of-13 entering Tuesday night. Since April 21, the first game they played without Judge, the Yankees hit 10 homers in eight games.
For the season the Yankees were fifth in the majors with 46 homers. Voit (8), Sanchez (8 in just 15 games) and Torres (5) are long-ball threats, so the power switch hasn’t been disconnected.
Yet, watching the Yankees these days is different. The question that can’t be answered for a while is whether the aggressive base running is the reason for the 11-2 record. Or is that ledger the result of playing the dregs of baseball?
