Yankees activate Aaron Hicks from the IL, option Mike Tauchman to Triple-A

Today the Yankees activated CF Aaron Hicks from the IL and optioned Mike Tacuhman to Triple-A Scranton. After suffering a lower back injury early on in Spring Training Hicks is set to make his season debut tonight in the Bronx against the Orioles.

Hicks is the latest Yankee to make his return from the injured list and it couldn’t come at a better time. The team has managed to get off to a 24-16 start without him and many others but there’s no question the Yankees are a better team on both sides of the ball with Hicks in the lineup.

It will be interesting to see where Hicks is inserted into the lineup because last season he had established himself as the best option to hit leadoff. That being said, D.J. LeMahieu has done an outstanding job in that spot over the past couple of weeks so it wouldn’t surprise me if Aaron Boone chooses to hit Hicks in a spot like third where he could drive in more runs.

As we’ve seen since Boone took over he loves to flip flop his order with righties and lefties and recently he’s had Luke Voit hitting second with Brett Gardner third and Gary Sanchez cleanup. Gardner is now hitting .204 on the season and has no business batting third so replacing him with the switch-hitting Hicks makes a lot of sense.

The move to send Tauchman down for Hicks was expected but to his credit, he had some big hits for the Yanks through the first month-plus and his defense was very solid. Tacuhamn’s numbers up to this point weren’t great but in May he swung the bat much better, hitting .296 compared to .177 in April.

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It was inevitable that once one of the injured outfielders made their return that Tauchman would be the one sent down, instead of Cameron Maybin who has really played well since his arrival. Maybin probably won’t last much longer himself with Stanton and Judge looming but the only way to replace him is by designating him for assignment and he doesn’t deserve that at this point.

Before the move was made to send down Tauchman I thought there was an outside chance it would be Miguel Andujar instead considering how much he’s struggled since his return off the IL. As long as Miggy isn’t still feeling the effects from his small labrum tear I believe he’ll break out of this funk, but it’s gotten to a point where the lack of results might be getting to his head.

When you look up at the scoreboard and see a .128 BA next to your name it’s hard to remain confident in your abilities so the problems for Miggy right now might be more mental than physical. That’s why I think a short trip to Scranton could do him some good.

As we saw with Chad Green yesterday a short stay at Triple-A can spark a turnaround for a struggling big leaguer. There’s obviously less pressure to perform down there and the level of competition isn’t nearly as strong so playing there for a week or two could really help boost one’s confidence.