Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton stepping up big time in Aaron Judge’s absence

It’s been a very successful first season for Giancarlo Stanton with the Yankees. Especially since Aaron Judge went down with a broken wrist on July 26th. Since than Stanton has stepped up big time and is currently in the midst of a home run tear, much like the one that helped him win the NL MVP a season ago.

Stanton’s recent power surge didn’t help the Yankees beat the Red Sox last weekend but over the past week, his red-hot bat has catapulted the team back to their winning ways. The Yanks have now won six of their last seven and Stanton has homered in five of the last six games.

The Yankees schedule from now until September is very favorable and it’s crucial that they continue to take advantage of this easy stretch of games. Even with Judge and Gary Sanchez both likely out at least until the end of the month, there’s no reason to think they can’t continue to do so with Stanton leading the way. The lineup as it stands still has enough firepower to punish opposing pitching staffs, but a lot of that depends on Stanton.

Since Judge went down Stanton has replaced him in the two hole in the order and as the most feared hitter in the lineup. He’s been swinging the bat well for a while now, but it took him until August to start racking up the home runs at a rapid pace. Now that he is there’s no telling when he might slow down.

If you remember a year ago he hit 18 of his 33 second-half home runs in August and finished the season with 59. He’s not quite on that pace right now, but he’s got six bombs this month and 11 in his last 22 games. He’s also hitting .333 since June 16th with 15 home runs and 40 RBI.

Those are some impressive numbers and lately, he’s doing it all with a tight hamstring. Right now Stanton is showing how tough he is by staying in the lineup day in and day out. A lot of his at-bats have come as the DH of late because that hamstring could get worse if he plays in the field.

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Stanton knows how important he is to the Yankee offense right now with Judge and Sanchez out and if they were both healthy you might have seen him on the bench or even on the 10-day DL.

The way he’s grinding through the injury is admirable and shows how much winning matters to him as he gets closer and closer to making his first career playoff appearance. After playing for a losing team in all eight of his seasons with the Marlins it would take a lot more than a nagging hamstring to keep the highly motivated Stanton out of the lineup right now.

I don’t think Yankee fans knew coming into this season just how tough Stanton was both physically and mentally and how hard he plays the game on a daily basis. Even with the injury you still see him running full speed to first base and hustling every time he takes the field. He’s done that all season, but fans should appreciate him much more now because of the injury and because of how well he’s been able to play at a time when the team needs him most.

The fans were unfairly all over him for much of the first half whenever he struggled, but he never let it get to him one bit. He’s remained positive through it all because that’s the type of person he is and he knew that eventually he’d take off and remind everybody why he’s such a special player.