Aaron Boone believes leadoff hitters have nothing to do with Anthony Volpe’s recent struggles.
“Zero is the role.” [it has] “I think so,” the Yankees manager said before his team’s 2-1 win in the Bronx in the opening game of a three-game series against the surprising Tigers on Friday night.
Volpe, a second-year shortstop, got off to a strong start this season, but has been struggling lately.
He entered Friday hitting .262/.345/.390 with a .734 OPS, better numbers than he posted as a rookie.
But since taking over the leadoff spot on April 10, Volpe has fallen into a funk.
Entering the night, Volpe had four hits in 29 at-bats with nine strikeouts, and since moving up in the batting order, he is hitting .209/.299/.291 with an OPS of 590.
Volpe remained at the top of the batting order Friday, going 1-for-3 with one walk and a strikeout.
“He’s OK. He’s still mixing in hits. He probably wasn’t as hot as he was the first few weeks,” Boone said. “But I don’t think that has anything to do with the leadoff position at all. It’s the ebb and flow of a season, especially with a young player. It’s tough to hit in the league. I don’t feel like he’s far from it. [breaking out]And even looking at him now, I feel like he’s a much better major league hitter than he was at this point a year ago. ”
The Yankees made the decision to insert Volpe into the leadoff position as Gleyber Torres struggled there and DJ LeMahieu, who had been out since mid-March with a non-displaced fracture in his right foot, was out.
Despite the team’s recent offensive woes, Boone has kept Volpe in the leadoff spot and isn’t ready to get rid of him just yet.
“Let’s see. We’re going to continue to get people back involved, and we’ll see that,” Boone said. “But yeah, I’m not worried about where Anthony hits and how he handles it. He’s not the kind of player that I worry about with that. … At the time, I We felt like we needed to do that from a personnel standpoint. He was a guy who could handle it. We felt like we needed to get Gleyber out of there and be a hitter in this league. Given how difficult it is, I don’t think that’s the reason. [for his struggles]”
