Yankees hope Giancarlo Stanton’s extra rehab week will pay dividends

PHILADELPHIA — Giancarlo Stanton was one week late on his initial hope for how long a hamstring strain might keep him out.

But that week was spent building up his stamina and volume of work after feeling like he was past the injury, which the Yankees hope will serve him well as the 34-year-old DH returned from the injured list Monday to bat fifth in the Yankees’ 14-4 win over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park .

“I thought G had really good at-bats,” manager Aaron Boone said after Stanton went 0-for-4 with a walk. “Didn’t have anything to show for it, but coming back your first draw out of the gate is Zack Wheeler, right on right, that’s a pretty tough draw. I thought swing decisions were good all night. Thought he just missed a couple pitches, got into some counts. It was good to see him like that. He came through all right.”

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The Yankees need Stanton to keep playing at the level he was before his injury to bolster the middle of the lineup that was largely lacking in his five-week absence – though that has been easier said than done when he has returned from leg injuries the last two years.

Before getting injured running the bases on June 22, Stanton had provided an important threat in the middle of the order, batting .246 with a .795 OPS and 18 home runs in 69 games. Without him, they went 10-18 with many of their bats struggling outside of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, for whom they had little protection hitting behind them.

The Yankees did not send Stanton on a rehab assignment before his return, instead having him spend the past week taking batting practice off a high-velocity pitching machine and the Trajekt (which simulates major league pitchers).

He was expected to be an option off the bench Tuesday before starting again Wednesday and then potentially a full-go from there.

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“Early last week, I think he was eyeing this series,” Boone said. “He knows his body, he pays attention to it really well. I just think it was really important for him to go through the volume and strain that he wanted to put on himself over and over to know that he was back. Because I think early last week, he started to feel like, ‘OK I’m there, but I need the endurance a little bit. I need to hit, hit, hit, run, run, run, sit. Do it again.’ He talked about stacking days, but building that volume that hopefully will help him from an endurance standpoint.”

Though Boone said this was not much different than how Stanton treated his comeback from leg injuries the last two years, taking the extra week to make sure he was fully ready seemed to be a more cautious approach to make sure he had a better chance to produce more consistently once he was back.

In 2023, after he missed six weeks with a hamstring strain, he hit just .179 with a .670 OPS in 88 games the rest of the way while looking like a shell of himself at the plate.

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And in 2022, he was off to another strong start before going on the IL with a calf strain.

When he came back, he hit just .167 with a .748 OPS in 40 games before going back on the IL with Achilles tendinitis, then hit .165 with a .633 OPS in 30 games after returning again.

“He’s pretty in tune with how he goes about it,” Boone said. “He’s older and more experienced and more evolved and been through it before, so with that, you know a little bit more how you want to get there. But I would say more than a lot of people, he’s in tune with that even in past situations.”

Part of the Yankees’ reasoning in not sending Stanton on a rehab assignment was the fact that he is a DH and would not be playing the field.

But he has been running the bases “quite a bit” over the past week, according to Boone.

“That’s part of, from his standpoint, his mindset, making sure that he’s done enough there and done enough volume to be able to handle it,” Boone said. “It’s one thing to be over the injury and, ‘I’m ready to go.’ It’s another thing to build that endurance a little bit. That’s why this past week was very important for him.”

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