The New York Yankees have been playing some incredible baseball this season. After a slow start, they have heated up and remained that way. Last week that rain cooled off some players but others remained unaffected. We take a look at the top guys on the Bronx Bombers trending up and down. Don’t forget to view some past coverage of the 3 Up and 3 Down: New York Yankee Editions from 5/8 and 5/15.
1 Up- Gary Sanchez
While things started slowly for Gary, he had begun to heat up in a big way. Sanchez now has 12 home runs and 33 rbi’s. Along with raising his average to .225 Gary has been crushing the ball and slugging .549. Sanchez is cemented into the middle of the Yankees order and should hopefully find himself with 30/100 and seasons end.
1 Down- Didi Gregorius
Didi was the hottest player out of the gate, winning the April Player of the Month Award, but the month of May has been very different for Didi. In April Didi was 32-98 for a .327 batting average. In May, however, Didi is 6-55 for a .109 batting average. The drastic separation in production lead to Didi sitting for two straight games against the Kansas City Royals over the weekend to reset his mind. We will keep an eye out to see if Gregorius can rebound to close out the month.
2 Up- Tommy Kahnle
Kahnle struggled before going on the DL with Shoulder Tendinosis. But as his rehab is coming to a close we expected that the issues he had will have been corrected and that we will get the dominant reliever we saw out of Kahnle last season.
2 Down- Jacoby Ellsbury
Not much more can be said about the fragile Jacoby Ellsbury. At this point, the injury of Ells is inconsequential because he is the forgotten and unneeded man. The former everyday Center Fielder truly has no spot on this team as it is currently constructed. Young phenoms like Clint Frazier, Billy McKinney and even Estevan Florial (who is about two years away from cracking this roster) are better positioned to join this team than is Ellsbury.
3 Up- Gleyber Torres
Gleyber is hitting .321 with an OPS of .960 and has six home runs in just 25 games this season. Last night Gleyber had his first multi-homer game and become the second youngest Yankees to ever accomplish that feat. The only Yankees younger to get a multi-homer game faster was Mickey Mantle. Seemingly, every game Torres does something to help the team win. Whether with his bat as he did last night. Or with his silky smooth glove Torres has left his mark on the season thus far.
3 Down- Clint Frazier
Through no fault of his own Clint Frazier makes his second appearance on this down list and for the exact same reason, a roster crunch. When Red Thunder got called up for the Interleague series against the Washington Nationals, many Yankee fans (myself included) were ecstatic to hear Frazier would be making his 2018 season debut. But the rain took away those potential at-bats. Even though Kansas City was starting two lefties Frazier made one start before being sent back down to Scranton Wilkes-Barre. Frazier will be back up at some point this season and he is staying sharp and ready as he homered in his first AB back in Triple-A.
B.O.L.O- Aaron Judge
Judge is someone to always look out for but after going 0-17, Judge hit big home run against Bartolo Colon. Judge seemed to just be a tad bit off over those 17 hitless at-bats, and Aaron himself said he felt just off and that he hasn’t yet felt like he’s gotten it locked in just yet. So that means the Judge is gearing up for a hot streak the likes of which Major League pitchers are not ready for.
