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Try it freeTORONTO — For the first time this season, Aaron Boone dropped Anthony Volpe into the nine-hole on Tuesday.
While Volpe hit two big home runs Saturday in the Yankees’ comeback win over the Braves, the shortstop has largely been scuffling at the plate over the past month-plus, a stretch in which he has moved further down the lineup.
Volpe, who was pinch-hit for by Ben Rice in the ninth inning of Monday’s loss, entered Tuesday batting .136 (15-for-110) with a .480 OPS over his last 31 games.
That left him batting .214 with a .680 OPS on the season.
Before the skid began, he was consistently hitting fifth or sixth — though that was when the Yankees were still without Giancarlo Stanton in the middle of their lineup — but he has spent the last few weeks batting seventh or eighth before moving to ninth as the Yankees faced Blue Jays right-hander Max Scherzer.

Instead of having Jorbit Vivas bat ninth, Boone bumped him up to eighth to stack three left-handed hitters in a row (Rice, Austin Wells and Vivas).
Typically, Boone prefers to spread out his left-handed bats, but he had six in the lineup against Scherzer.
Volpe batted ninth nine times last season and 32 times as a rookie.