Yankees hoping to use speed on base paths to take some pressure off hitters

When it’s come to stolen bases, attempts are up across the league, and the Yankees are among the teams trying to take advantage of the new rules and their speed on the base paths.

Through their first three games of the season, the Bombers have the second most attempted stolen bases per game with 2.00 behind only the Baltimore Orioles. Their five stolen bases so far this season are tied for third-most in baseball.

While the more frequent stolen bases are putting more pressure on teams’ defenses, it’s also taking some of the pressure off the hitters at the plate. For example, in Sunday’s 6-0 win over the San Francisco Giants, Anthony Volpe stole third in the bottom of the seventh to put himself in scoring position and eventually crossed home plate on a sac fly by Anthony Rizzo.

“By Volpe getting to third base today with Rizzo, it made his at-bat a lot easier,” Isiah Kiner-Falefa explained. “He was able to get the RBI and it just takes pressure off guys having to do too much. It allows us to just slap a single, slap a ground ball somewhere. It slows the game down it’s a big aspect of winning ballgames.”

The Yankees already had a few guys that could move well on the basepath, with Kiner-Falefa leading the team in stolen bases last year with 22 and Gleyber Torres had 10 in 2022. Even Aaron Judge has been able to catch pitchers with 16 stolen bases last season.

Now Volpe has shown that he can move quite well and use his speed to drive pitchers crazy. He became only the fifth player since at least 1901 with stolen bases in each of his first three MLB games and got Giants’ pitcher Sean Hjelle to throw a wild pitch.

“It’s one of the things he’s excellent at. He’s an elite base runner,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s not a burner. He’s got good speed, but he’s just a special base runner and does his homework. Stays under control and then does run well. But he’s the real deal on the base paths and we’ve seen it here play a factor for us in these first few.”

Volpe’s ability to steal bases is nothing new for the 21-year-old. He had 50 stolen bases in 2022 while he was down in the minors and that skill has clearly translated to the majors rather quickly.

“It’s getting a piece of the concentration of the pitcher and the opposing team, which hopefully over time does things like that where maybe it nets one of our guys a mistake pitch because their focus needs to be someplace else,” Boone added.