As Division Series Encounter With Royals Looms, Yankees Taking Cautious Approach

Hours before the Mets kept alive their season and continued the promise of a compelling postseason for the New York baseball scene, Yankee Stadium was quiet with the sounds of players filing in for a simulated game and key figures talking about their postseason return following a one-year absence.

The theme was a sense of caution and ignoring the narrative of how the Yankees must get it done, especially after the Houston Astros were knocked out by the upstart Detroit Tigers. The Yankees know by now merely being the best in the AL hardly guarantees anything and how tricky the division series can be from their stumbles in the 1995, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2018 and 2020 editions of the best-of-five series.

The Yankees are heading to the division series after scoring 815 runs, which is eight more than two years ago when they ended with a whimper of at-bats in a nine-game postseason. It also is an offense with the perception whether warranted or not is a two-man team with Juan Soto and Aaron Judge and a few playing out of position like Jazz Chisholm Jr. at third base or Ben Rice a possible option at first base with limited experience there.

Run differential and winning the season series means little in a postseason setting and not just for the Yankees, who are well aware of those factors not being relevant at times heading into a series with an 86-win Kansas City Royals team, one year after an 84-win version of the Arizona Diamondbacks reached the World Series and this is an opponent with better pitching in Michael Wacha, Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo.

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“We have a great shot but we only have a great shot if we play our best baseball," GM Brian Cashman said. “I know that we have the capabilities, but at the same time I caution that we’ve had capabilities many times before and you have to match those capabilities with, obviously, great defense, great baserunning, tremendous offensive at-bats against extremely tough pitching and, obviously, the most important aspect is pitching to the best of your abilities.”

Because the Yankees are such frequent postseason participants and the Royals are only here for the third time in the wild-card era, they represent a new opponent and one who last played in this setting back in 1980 when they faced the Yankees four times in a five-year span and ended that period with a three-game sweep when the ALCS was still a best-of-five.

This will apply even more if the Yankee enter deep hitting slumps that plagued them when they hit .162 against the Astros in the 2022 ALCS after eking out a five-game win over Cleveland in the division series. Or if they hit .157 like in the 2012 ALCS against Detroit following a taxing five-game ALDS versus Baltimore.

In the meantime until Gerrit Cole, the Yankees will patiently wait for their turn to get going while determining such crucial things whether Anthony Rizzo’s broken fingers will rule him out or if Alex Verdugo’s defense wins out over the potential of Jasson Dominguez’s novice left field experience and potential at the plate at among the toughest places to defend in Yankee Stadium.

The compelling argument is the Yankees possess enough hitting to survive with Verdugo’s glove outweighing a bat that skidded for the most of the past three-plus months.

The first two months of Verdugo’s tenure went extremely well with the outfielder hitting for a respectable batting average and bring a certain swagger to a team off to a much-needed strong start after enduring an 82-80 season.

The rest of it not so much as Verdugo’s production dropped off significantly to the point where he went from hitting .261 at June 14 to spending every day after July 11, hitting in the .230s.

And as the production dipped and Dominguez’s return from injuries proved productive in the minor leagues, the fans clamored for a change, one that certainly seemed justified if the criteria were solely the results in the batter’s box. They kept Dominguez in the minors past the Sept. 1 marker for roster expansion but by Sept. 9, he was up for good, resulting in the assumption Verdugo would lose playing time.

Except Verdugo wound up appearing in 12 of the final 19 games and starting 10 of those games because the Yankees discovered Dominguez is a novice in left field, something that showed up a few times, notably in Seattle when he dropped a fly ball by Justin Turner and overran a fly ball by Colton Cowser last week on the day before the Yankees clinched the AL East.

Still Dominguez showed decent signs in left while dealing with some rainy weather and who plays there is part of the meticulous planning and cautious purpose the Yankees head into a Division Series with really high expectations based on their performance and what teams are already eliminated.