Yankees hope to take better approach at the plate after struggles in opener vs. Rays

Yankees manager Aaron Boone on Friday stuck to the plan. He declined to criticize his own players one day after Aaron Judge seemed to do just that following the Yankees’ 8-2 loss to the Rays.

On Thursday night, Judge talked about unidentified teammates not “sticking with” the plan during their at-bats against Tampa Bay starter Drew Rasmussen, who allowed two singles in seven shutout innings.  

After the game, Judge huddled with DJ LeMahieu and Harrison Bader in the locker room before volunteering to speak with reporters and delivering his message.  

“I saw his interview after the game,” Boone said before Friday’s game. “I think he's just giving you an answer of having a few games where we haven’t had success, especially against Rasmussen. He's kind of had our number.  

“But I think it's also just making sure that our team approach is tight. Also, within that there's also individual approaches that have got to have that conviction and that confidence when you go up there of seeing [it] through even when you don't necessarily get a result. So having that conviction of plan is important.”

That seemed to be the crux of Judge’s argument: that certain  unidentified Yankees didn’t stick to the correct approach during their at-bats.

“I think some guys had some good plans,” said Judge, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. “But it’s just about sticking with it as the at-bat goes on. You’ll foul off a pitch, you’ll miss a pitch, and then you’ll kind of get upset and maybe switch off it and try something different. For us, it’s just about, you got to have conviction. You’ve got to stick with your approach, stick with your plan throughout the whole at-bat.

“When you got nine guys in the lineup doing that, it makes for a tough outing. But when we’re constantly switching our approach, at-bat to at-bat, guy to guy, it’s gonna make it tough.”

Rasmussen — whom the Rays put on the 60-day injured list on Friday with a flexor strain in his forearm, which is often a prelude to Tommy John surgery — has never given up a run to the Yankees in 21 innings in four appearances.

Boone shook up his lineup on Friday against righthanded opener Trevor Kelley, who was supposed to give way to lefthander Josh Fleming for the bulk of the early innings.

Anthony Volpe, who had hit leadoff in every one of his games since April 16, was dropped to seventh. Gleyber Torres was the leadoff hitter and designated hitter. Isiah Kiner-Falefa was sixth in leftfield and Oswaldo Cabrera was ninth as the second baseman.

Torres went into the game on a seven-game hitting streak during which he was 10-for-30 (.333) with two home runs and nine RBIs.  

Torres is no one’s idea of a prototypical leadoff hitter, but he has walked 19 times in his first 37 games this season. Last season, Torres didn’t take his 19th walk until his 73rd game.

“Look, he's very talented,” Boone said. “We all know that, I think. We've seen him have incredible stretches of production. I think in his DNA is that ability and I think as he continues to gain — again, it's still a young player — but as he's gained a lot of experience in his career, I think he's continuing to grow and evolve and get a little bit better. With that, I think the walk and the strikeout rate hopefully is a byproduct of that, of the walk rate going up and strikeout rate going down a little bit. But I think it's more just his experience and evolution as a hitter, and hopefully that continues.”

Torres, 26, went into Friday with 21 strikeouts in 157 plate appearances (13.4%) this season. Entering this season, his career strikeout percentage in 2,336 plate appearances was 21.9.

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.