Yankees: Aaron Hicks continues to silence his critics

Over the past month Aaron Hicks has been one of the Yankees most consistent players and in the process, he’s silenced the critics who wanted him out of the lineup earlier in the season.

I’ll be the first to admit that when Hicks was batting in the .210 range back in mid-May I was one of the fans who thought he should be dropped in the order or removed from the lineup in favor of Clint Frazier. Frazier was raking at Triple-A (and still is) while Hicks was looking more like the player he was in 2016 for the Yankees rather than the breakout performer he was a season ago.

However, things have changed for Hicks since May 15th as he’s raised his batting average from .206 all the way up to .258. He’s been outstanding of late and Sunday night he delivered the best single-game performance of his career. In the Yankees biggest game of the season up to this point, Hicks blasted three home runs in an 11-1 rout over the rival Red Sox to give them a huge series’ win.

Batting leadoff for the third straight game, Hicks provided three of the Yankees six home runs to help them get back into a tie atop the AL East. Two of them came against Boston’s starter David Price who gave up a career-high five home runs in just 3.2 innings. In the eighth, the switch-hitting Hicks capped off his career night with a home run from the left side of the plate to give him his 14th of the season and 8th in his last 15 games.

With Hicks, the talent has always been there ever since he was drafted by the Twins in the first round of the 2008 draft. Defensively he’s always been great in center field but it took him a while to figure it all out at the plate. In 2017 something finally clicked for Hicks offensively and right now he’s proving that last season was no fluke and that he still hasn’t reached his ceiling as a player.

Hicks has always shown a good eye and an ability to work deep counts since he came to the Yankees back in ’16 but what’s really impressed this season is his power batting right-handed. Unlike when he bats lefty, Hicks has serious opposite field pop from the right side and this season he’s really used the short porch at Yankee Stadium to his advantage. That’s where he hit his first home run Sunday night and he followed that up with a bomb to dead center field in Monument Park for his second.

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Hicks’ batting average splits are pretty much even from both sides, but his slugging percentage batting righty (.589) is well above his percentage from the left side (.462). That’s part of the reason why Aaron Boone has moved him to the top of the lineup when a southpaw is on the mound and the lefty-hitting Brett Gardner into the nine hole.

Hicks clearly has more raw power from the right side, but over the past month and a half, he’s produced regardless of the pitcher on the mound. He’s provided a spark no matter where he’s hit in the order and any thoughts of replacing him with Frazier have completely disappeared.

When you look at the season Hicks had a year ago it really should come as no surprise to see him play as well as he has. It’s just that Yankee fans expect greatness and as we all know we can get very impatient with players who get off to slow starts. That’s why credit has to be given to Boone for sticking with Hicks and knowing that things would eventually trend upward for him.

He could have easily been pressured into giving Frazier more opportunities to play but he saw the quality in Hicks’ at-bats even when the numbers weren’t there and he stuck with him. We’ve seen Boone do that with multiple players who struggled early in the season (Holder, Betances, Gardner) so it’s been nice to see how his faith has really paid off in recent weeks.

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Most of the credit, however, go to Hicks himself. In a lineup filled with All-Stars, he continues to show that he is the answer in center field and serves as a reminder to Yankee fans why they shouldn’t give up on a player because of a slow start.