Joey Gallo's role likely to diminish further with Andrew Benintendi's arrival
Joey Gallo of the Yankees strikes out looking to end the second inning against the Royals at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Joey Gallo has been the most scrutinized player on the Yankees’ roster for weeks. A prodigious power hitter when the club acquired him before the 2021 trade deadline, he has badly underperformed.
Manager Aaron Boone recently has preferred to play converted infielder Matt Carpenter in Gallo's place because he has produced at the plate. It's just another reason why Gallo’s days in pinstripes are rumored to be numbered.
Now he is sure to be squeezed further after Wednesday’s acquisition of Andrew Benintendi, who becomes the everyday leftfielder.
“I’m not really thinking about it too much — I am trying to focus on today and what role I am playing today,” Gallo said Thursday when asked if he expects to be with the Yankees beyond Tuesday's trade deadline.
“If they pull me in the office and tell me I am going somewhere else, then that’s where I go,” he added. “Until then, I am a Yankee and I am going to keep playing as hard as I can and help the team win any way I can and in whatever role.”
Gallo got the start in rightfield Thursday against the Royals at the Stadium and struck out three times in three at-bats in the Yankees' 1-0 win. Beginning June 18, he is 6-for-71 with 35 strikeouts.
Gallo is batting .159 with 12 home runs in 81 games and just hasn’t been the guy who hit at least 38 home runs in three of the past five seasons.
Boone isn’t tiptoeing around how Gallo’s diminishing role is accelerated by Benintendi’s arrival.
“[I] just try and keep as open and honest as I can keep the situation,” Boone said. “The bottom line is we have a ton of really good players and really good options, even with [Giancarlo Stanton] down right now. I’ll try to communicate it out as best I can moving forward.”
Gallo has a team-first attitude and communicated the same kind of excitement about the Benintendi trade as other Yankees who will be less impacted, saying “I was excited to have him here and the team is improving . . . any way we can.”
But he knows that his situation is in flux.
“It’s part of the business and it’s part of how things go when you’re trying to win a World Series,” he said.
Less of Judge in center
Aaron Judge has excelled when playing centerfield, but expect to see less of that with Benintendi now in the fold and expected to be the leftfielder.
Judge could return to making more starts in rightfield and Aaron Hicks — whose July OPS was 1.027 entering Thursday — could go from leftfield back to his natural spot in center and also play some rightfield. Moving Judge to right also would take less of a toll on him physically.
“I’ve talked to [Judge] about this and . . . moving forward, the last couple of months of the season anyway, I envision him being a little bit more in rightfield,” Boone said. “I’ll do a little of everything with [Hicks] and I’ve told him, ‘There’ll be days in center, there’ll be days in right and there’ll be days you’re DH.’ ”
When Stanton returns from the Achilles tendinitis that has put him on the injured list, he is likely to be the primary DH, but Boone said: “I still envision him in the outfield a little bit.” He added that Carpenter’s offensive production will keep him in the mix for at-bats as well.
“We want to be smart here,” he added. “So we go into the final couple of months and now that we’ve brought in another outfielder that’s played a ton of leftfield, it changes the equation and the moving parts a little bit.”
Severino update
When Luis Severino was placed on the IL with a lat strain on July 14, it was decided he would not throw a baseball for the two weeks that ended Thursday. Boone said that before the weekend, it will be determined if he can begin to throw again . . . The Yankees honored Buck O’Neil, who starred for the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs in the 1930s and 1940s and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
