Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton has gone ice cold at the worst possible time

It’s been a tough start to September for the Yankees offense a whole but nobody in the lineup has struggled more this month than star slugger Giancarlo Stanton. The reigning NL MVP’s bat has been ice cold in recent weeks and the timing of his struggles could not be any worse.

When Aaron Judge went down with a fractured wrist at the end of the July the Yankees needed some to step up in his absence. During the first couple weeks without Judge, nobody stepped up more than Stanton who had his most productive month of the season with nine home runs and 20 RBI.

However towards the end of August, around the time Stanton was just one home run shy of reaching #300 in his career he started to slump. After hitting #299 on August 19th it took Stanton another 10 games to reach #300 and since then he’s yet to add on. It’s been 11 games now since Stanton last left the yard and over that span he’s 4-41 with only 2 RBI. If you look even further back he’s 8 for his last 70 with only that one home run and 5 RBI.

Stanton’s struggles have been a bit of a surprise considering how great he was from mid-June until the end of August. He was the force in the lineup we all expected him to be and was well on his way to another 40 HR and 100 RBI season while hitting in the .280’s. Now he’s all the way down to .264 and it will take a huge push for him to add another 7 home runs and 14 RBI to reach those totals.

A player of Stanton’s caliber is more than capable of doing so, but he’s running out of time with only 16 games left to play. The Yankees themselves have pretty much run out of time to chase Boston atop the division and their hold on that first AL Wild Card spot is slipping away as well.

Entering play today the Yanks are only a game in the loss column ahead of the surging A’s and won’t be able to hold them off if they continue to play this poorly. They’re coming off a 4-5 west coast trip which was capped off with a series loss in Minnesota to a bad Twins team.

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It’s inexcusable how this Yankee team continues to lose games over the past month plus to teams well under .500 and a lot of it lately has to do with a lackluster offense.

Even without Judge, the Yankees still have more than enough talent to still be an elite offensive club, especially after the recent returns of Gary Sanchez and Didi Gregorius. Hopefully, they can get going as they get more at-bats under their belt but the real key is getting Stanton back on track.

At this point in the season where every game and every at-bat means so much, you can’t have your cleanup hitter hitting .105 in September without a single home run. This is now more than just a mini-slump and the longer it goes on the harder it’s going to be for this Yankee team to secure home field in that wild card game October 3rd.

The last thing we want to see is the Yankees season to come down to one game out West against the hottest team in baseball since the All-Star break. The pressure is building on the Yankees with each passing day and right now Stanton is at the forefront of what some would consider a late-season collapse.

It’s not all on him but obviously, he needs to be better and help carry the load from here on out. Until Judge returns, he is the Yankees best power bat and even when Judge comes back there’s no telling how productive he will be after missing so much time. That’s why they need Stanton to get hot ASAP and finish strong and carry some momentum with him into October.

Stanton has waited his entire career to play in meaningful September games and a chance to earn a trip to the postseason. There’s no doubt he’s going to get his first taste of playoff baseball come October 3rd, but if he and the rest of the offense don’t pick things up soon it could be a quick exit for Stanton in his postseason debut.