The Yankees and the Dodgers aren’t exactly upstarts in Major League Baseball, but ESPN’s Karl Ravech says both teams are potential “sleeping giants.”
The two-time World Series champion Dodgers got pitcher Blake Snell back on Monday, and fellow starter Tyler Glasnow is due back by the end of the month. They are joining a rotation that already includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tarik Skubal, and potentially Shohei Ohtani in the postseason.
The Yankees, meantime, are awaiting the returns of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Belinger, players who could transform their roster heading into the postseason.
“Similar to the Dodgers...there is this feeling that the Yankees are the sleeping giant in the American League if those bats can wake up and then they can get those guys healthy because the pitching appears to be there, especially with [Carlos] Rodon coming back,” Ravech said on air during the Yankees’ 10-5 win over the Seattle Mariners Wednesday night.
Without their trio of sluggers who have combined to win five MVP awards, the Yankees, since June 1, are last in the majors in batting average (.233), 28th out of 30 in OPS (.675), and 25th in slugging percentage (.385).
Still, they are 15-10 in their last 25 games and remain comfortably ahead in the AL Wild Card race, yet 6 games back of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. It is effectively 7 games since the Rays own the tiebreaker.
The Yankees have erupted for 14 runs in the last two games against Seattle, fueled by two homers and a double by Trent Grisham on Wednesday.
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ESPN’s David Ross, the former MLB catcher and Chicago Cubs manager, said the whole lineup will improve once the big bats return.
“Ben Rice, he’ll be better, Trent Grisham, he’ll be better,” he said. “Everybody in the lineup is going to get pushed down.”
For now, there are no exact timelines on when Stanton, Bellinger and Judge will return. Stanton (calf) is now running the bases and could return soon as a part-time DH.
It’s unclear how he will look at the plate when he does return, but he’s capable of carrying the Yankees offense in a postseason series. He’s done it before.
Bellinger, who was expected to miss 4-6 weeks, is “getting close” to returning from a left hamstring strain that has sidelined him since July 26. He has been hitting and working in the outfield.
“He’s running really well. He’s probably at I think over 90% of his normal top speed and feeling good doing that,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters Tuesday.
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As for Judge, he may not return from his rib injury until September and will not have swung a bat in several months at that point. No one knows what he will look like and how he will perform, and he remains the biggest X factor in the American League.
All of this makes the Yankees a potential “sleeping giant” once the playoffs start.
The AP contributed reporting.
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