With Oswald Peraza sizzling at Triple-A and Anthony Volpe struggling in the majors, some have wondered if the latter needs a minor league reset.
However, that doesn’t appear to be something the Yankees are considering, as Hal Steinbrenner said the club hasn’t discussed the possibility of demoting Volpe, per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. The owner added that he told Volpe at the end of spring training that the Yankees weren’t just giving the 22-year-old a three-week audition when the team named him the starting shortstop.
“You can benefit from so many things in this game,” Aaron Boone added when asked if it was best for Volpe to experience growing pains in the majors. “Like there’s not the end-all answer. My feel and my belief in Anthony is that the cream is gonna rise to the top. I believe in his ability and the person, that he’s going to be an outstanding player in this game, and we’ve seen signs of that already all year. He’s had his fair share of struggles, but he’s also been in the middle of a lot of winning.”
Volpe has made positive contributions in his first 67 games, totaling nine home runs, 26 RBI and 14 stolen bases entering his first Subway Series on Tuesday. He’s yet to be caught running.
But Volpe’s 77 strikeouts easily led the Yankees, and he was slashing just .186/.260/.345. His already-poor numbers have been worse over his last 80 plate appearances: he’s slashing .122/.175/.257. Volpe has also been striking out more and walking less compared to earlier in the season, when his speed and knack for getting on-base alleviated some shortcomings.
Volpe has also had some bumps in the field. While he’s made spectacular plays throughout the season, he’s also booted routine ones with regularity. His seven errors led the team entering Tuesday.
Peraza, meanwhile, has been hitting .321/.396/.728 with 10 homers and 17 RBI over 19 games since returning to Triple-A on May 14. Still, Volpe’s job doesn’t currently appear to be in danger.
“When we made the decision to go with Anthony at the start of the season, it wasn’t that we thought he was just gonna light the world on fire right away,” Boone said. “We expected that there’d be some ups and downs. But one of the things we’re betting on is the person, too, and knowing that he’d able to handle some of the inevitable adversity, some of the inevitable challenges and adjustments that you got to make.”
Boone said that some of those adjustments include getting Volpe’s strikeouts down, as he had racked up 28 in his last 24 games entering Tuesday. He’s striking out 30.8% of the time this season — nearly matching what he did over a limited stint at Triple-A last year.
“There’s adjustments to be made,” Boone said. “I think we’re talking about the right things to get him on track and get him really going the way we feel like he’s capable of. That’s part of it. Mechanically, you can get a little bit out of sync. That can take you out of it for a little bit.”
While Boone acknowledged Volpe has some improvements to make at the plate, the manager hasn’t wavered when discussing his belief in the rookie with the media. Boone also said that he expresses that confidence to the player “every now and then,” but he tries not to send the wrong message by overdoing it.
“We believe in him a lot,” Boone said, adding that Volpe has been the same person through peaks and valleys. “And part of that is we’re gonna treat him like he’s one of our key guys. So I’ve gone about that a lot. There’s certain days you pick a spot, you have a little conversation, but at the same time, I probably do that on some level with even some of our most veteran guys.
“I truly believe he’s equipped for all this.”
Boone said the “the hope” is to have Harrison Bader return against the Red Sox on Friday in Boston.
Bader, out since May 29 with a hamstring injury, went through a full workout on Tuesday at Citi Field. He will play in a rehab game at Somerset on Wednesday.
Ben Rortvedt, the Yankees’ oft-injured No. 3 catcher, has suffered another injury at Triple-A. He landed on the seven-day injured list with a bone bruise after getting hit by a pitch, per Boone.
The skipper’s understanding was that Rortvedt wouldn’t miss more than a week, but the only other catchers on the Yankees’ 40-man roster are major leaguers Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka.
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