QUEENS – In his first taste of Subway Series baseball, struggling youngster Anthony Volpe had himself a night for the New York Yankees in their 7-6 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field.
In four at-bats, the 22-year-old shortstop doubled twice with an RBI and a run scored in his first career game against his crosstown rivals.
“Amazing” was the word that left Volpe’s mouth when asked about facing the Mets for the first time in his young career. “Incredible atmosphere the fans made. Definitely the coolest game of the season for me.”
It was the kind of game Volpe needed to have as he entered Tuesday night with a .186 batting average, a .260 on-base percentage, and a .345 slugging percentage in 67 games.
Volpe has tuned out the noise that comes with batting under the Mendoza line but that doesn’t mean he’s unaware of his struggles, which makes nights like Tuesday rather important for the youngster as he continues his development at the major-league level.
“I think it’s just good building stuff, good building process,” Volpe said following his solid night at the dish. “And from there, I feel like, like I said, the process I thought was really good today.”
Before first pitch, Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke about Volpe’s struggles — as he’s done often — and maintained that the belief in him hasn’t wavered.
“My belief in Anthony is that the cream is going to rise to the top. I believe in his ability and the person, and that he is going to be an outstanding player in this game,” Boone said. “We’ve seen signs of that already all year. He’s had his fair share of struggles, but he’s also been in the middle of a lot of winning and having a role in that.”
The Yankees found themselves in a 5-1 hole early, but the comeback was on in the fourth inning. Five runs crossed the plate, one courtesy of Volpe’s RBI double, which scored Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
Later in the inning, Volpe scored on a Jake Bauers single to give the Yankees their first lead of the night, 6-5.
In his final at-bat of the night, Volpe sent one just foul, as he did this past weekend against the Boston Red Sox. Although not coming up with that monumental hit in those big moments at a consistent rate just yet, Volpe doesn’t seem to be scared of those critical situations.
“I just don’t think he’s overwhelmed by any of it. He’s confident in his ability. Look, he’s finding his way. He’s learning his way at the big-league level,” Boone said postgame. “There’s going to be bumps along the way. But he can play, and he knows that, even as he goes through this, and he’s kind of going through the learning phase of things.”
With the Yankees eight games back of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East — especially with Aaron Judge on the shelf — there’s little room for error. With Volpe’s struggles, there was some speculation that the organization might have decided to send him to Triple-A to work on his mechanics and call up a red-hot Oswald Peraza.
But a commitment was made to Volpe from Day 1, and the Yankees aren’t de-committing from that decision.
“I go back to when we made the decision to go with Anthony at the start of the season. It wasn’t that we thought he was just going to light the world on fire right away. We expected that there’d be some ups and downs,” Boone said. “But one of the things we’re betting on is the person too, and knowing that he would be able to handle some of the inevitable adversity, some of the inevitable challenges and adjustments, that you got to make as the best players in the world.”
