New York Yankees: Giancarlo ‘Strikeouts’ Stanton

Hitting .197 BA, with 10 RBI, three homers, 13 hits and 29 strikeouts in 66 at-bats certainly doesn’t seem to be in-line with a player who is the reigning NL MVP, but that is what Giancarlo Stanton has given the New York Yankees thus far.

Just for comparison’s sake of how bad Stanton start in pinstripes has been, only one player in the bigs has more strikeouts than Stanton, Oakland A’s rookie Matt Olson. Olson has 30 whiffs in one less at bat, but his batting average is at least above the Mendoza Line at .239.

This is without question Stanton’s worst start in the his career. In 2017, he had 27 strikeouts in 87 at-bats; in 2016, 30 strikeouts in his first 79 at-bats; and in 2015, he struck out 28 times in 81 at-bats. Not once in the last three seasons did his batting average go below .260 to start out and he has 16, 19 and 21 RBIs respectively to counter the 10 he has now.

You can also check out MLB’s hitting statistics page, where the top-50 batters are listed by batting average. Run down the strikeouts column to see that only three guys have 15 strikeouts, one has 16 and one Yankee named Aaron Judge has 18.

Now blaming this mediocre start all on Stanton is not fair, as the Yankees line-up should be good enough to withstand his slump and it has not been. No doubt the pitching has been far from solid, plus being led by a rookie manager in Aaron Boone and that is not a recipe of a winning baseball team.

Mind you, the season is in its infancy with only 16-games played, and 136 left to win. Or in the Yankees case play catch up, as the Bombers are digging themselves a nice little hole in the AL East.

Thus far the Yanks are 8-8, sitting six games behind their rival’s in Beantown, as the Red Sox have come out of the gate looking unstoppable.

Bottom line is, as my favorite sports radio personality, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo recently said, “You can’t win pennants in April and May, but you certainly can lose them.”

Let’s just hope the 2018 Yankees do not prove this old baseball adage to be true.