Yankees release wildest lineup of 2021 featuring Gio Urshela at short
Update: The Yankees lineup is so weird in part because Gleyber Torres is recovering from a finger injury.
We asked for a change to the Yankees lineup involving Gio Urshela the other day, but…I’m not sure we were looking for this.
Aaron Boone, apparently feeling himself after a two-game winning streak (can you call that a streak?) and facing down Hyun-Jin Ryu in Tuesday’s battle with the Blue Jays, has decided to shake things up.
And by “things,” we mean basically everything that wasn’t nailed down.
DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge continue to comprise the lineup’s top three after a victory Monday — though it wasn’t a successful showing, as the order’s top six bats all went hitless.
Beyond those three? Hold onto your helmets.
Yes, Urshela is at shortstop, which isn’t even the height of the insanity expressed here.
Tuesday’s Yankees lineup is the height of insanity.
See, you send down Tyler Wade, and this is what happens. Power-mad managers lose their minds.
Objectively, Urshela is playing out of position here, though it’s a change to his routine that would help the Yankees quite a bit. If it doesn’t, though, there’ll be hell to pay.
LeMahieu stays atop the order, though he’ll be playing third in Urshela’s stead. What else is new? Aaron Hicks is batting fifth, Gary Sanchez (the team’s hottest hitter?) is cleaning up, and Jay Bruce is back at first base, though he’s batting ninth instead of a confusing sixth in the order.
Drink it all in. There is a very solid chance this exact combination of names never appears again in 2021.
Of course, Urshela’s shortstop debut comes in the stead of Gleyber Torres, whose struggles in the field have been well-documented so far, but whose struggles at the plate probably haven’t gotten enough attention.
He’s got the game-tying hit in Sunday’s game on his ledger, but is still hitting just .205 with that single RBI and without a home run on the year.
10 games in, we were certainly expecting more after a full offseason.
We can’t knock this lineup ’til we’ve tried it, but we hope Jameson Taillon is comfortable, at least. Outside of the man on the bump, there’s a whole lot of experimenting going on here.