Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton has been noxiously bad since coming off IL

Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton has reverted to his worst form again, just in time.

Yankees fans have very little patience for Giancarlo Stanton, one of the most fearsome hitters in the American League, when everything’s right with his composed and dangerous swing.

He proved that repeatedly in 2018, as well as in the early portion of this shortened 2020 season, and the first few games of his September return, in which he hit 100 MPH lasers with regularity.

But as the team dipped in efficiency and effort levels, Stanton cratered.

Prior to his game-tying double in the fifth inning on Saturday, which does not absolve all sins of the past few weeks, the DH’s numbers were downright troubling, including an over-30% chase rate, which he had taken so much pride in diminishing in his season’s first cameo.

At this point, it’s just depressing. It’s depressing to have to continually defend a player who is so obviously good, and so obviously impactful. It’s depressing to somehow be in the minority by expressing the extremely salient opinion, “Former NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton is good.”

But when streaks like this arrive with the postseason looming, it takes some mental math to justify your faith in one of the league’s elite players. And even when Stanton’s hitting, you can’t deny the injury bug has played a role in his streakiness — the most rational among us have no counterargument there, unfortunately.

Of course, there’s one solid counterpoint to the haters: on Saturday, Stanton proved he can still do this at a moment’s notice.

We wish for nothing but good things for Stanton, who’ll be here for the long haul — he all but announced on Friday night that he wouldn’t be opting out of his long-term contract, which everyone had long assumed.

But the slugger’s recent streak, marked by slider whiffs and off-balance swings, has looked a lot like every Yankees fan’s least favorite bugaboos, all arriving the week before October. It’s been much harder to keep the haters quiet lately.

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