Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton activated, makes season debut
Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees singles during the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Giancarlo Stanton has finally returned.
Stanton, who missed the first 70 games of the season and all of spring training with tendon tears in both elbows, made his long-awaited season debut Monday night. He batted fifth and served as the designated hitter in the opener of the Yankees’ four-game series against the Angels at the Stadium.
The Yankees activated Stanton earlier on Monday and designated utilityman Pablo Reyes for assignment.
“Getting on the plane last night, I talked to him after our game when we were flying home, right before we took off, and just made sure we’re good to go,” Aaron Boone said before Monday’s game. “He had a really good work day here on Sunday where he did a lot of hitting and getting ready, and he feels good to go. So, excited to get the big boy back.”
Stanton will look to provide an immediate spark for the Yankees, who were swept in Boston over the weekend and had scored only five runs in their previous four games.
He received a standing ovation before his first at-bat, stepping to plate with men on second and third with two outs in the first inning. He swung at the first pitch he saw — a low-and-inside 95.7-mph sinker — and hit a 101.5-mph groundout to third.
Stanton notched his first hit of the season in the fourth on the eighth pitch of his second at-bat, roping a full-count, 97.4-mph sinker to leftfield at 111.1 mph off the bat for a one-out single. He was stranded after Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
Stanton, who has had at least one IL stint in each of the previous seven seasons, has 429 career homers. He hit .233 with 27 homers in 114 regular-season games last year and was still among the league’s hardest hitters, ranking in the 100th percentile in bat speed, the 99th percentile in average exit velocity and barrel percentage and the 98th percentile in hard-hit percentage, per Baseball Savant.
Stanton struck out swinging on a slider way outside the zone in his third at-bat to end the sixth.
The 6-6, 245-pound slugger, arguably the Yankees’ best player in the 2024 postseason, played in his first MLB game since the club’s Game 5 World Series loss to the Dodgers last Oct. 30 — a span of 229 days. The 2024 ALCS MVP slashed .273/.339/.709 with seven homers and 16 RBIs in 14 playoff games.
Stanton played three games in a rehab assignment with Double-A Somerset last week, going 3-for-11 with four RBIs, a double, a walk and three strikeouts. He spent two weeks in Tampa taking live at-bats at the team’s minor-league complex before heading to Somerset, where he met with reporters last Tuesday and was asked how he was feeling.
“Good, good. Ready to rock,” Stanton said. “It’s been a long time coming, so it’s good to get rolling.”
Boone expects Stanton, signed to a 13-year, $325 million contract through 2027 with a club option for 2028, to be his usual presence in the middle of the order.
But with a roster that has a lot of mouths to feed and limited flexibility, Boone is not necessarily expecting to pencil in the 35-year-old designated hitter each day. The manager mentioned a rotation of “six guys” who could be in and out of the lineup depending on matchups.
“I think you guys all see our roster right now and know that we have, frankly, guys that should be in there probably pretty much every single day,” Boone said. “And we’ll have to work a little bit of a rotation there.
“G will be part of that. So I expect him to play regularly, but he’ll have his days too, and we’ll just kind of let this thing kind of shake out and always having a way to work itself out. But I’ve talked to the guys about it.
“We’re going to have a couple good players sitting over there every single day that you can make the case should be in the lineup, so we’re all on the same page with it and ready to roll.”
On Monday, Paul Goldschmidt and Jasson Dominguez were the odd men out. Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice were in the lineup. Rice, who started at first base Monday, made 43 starts at designated hitter in Stanton’s absence. Boone said he will get time at catcher at some point.
Notes & quotes: Righty reliever Jake Cousins will undergo Tommy John surgery on Wednesday . . . Righthander JT Brubaker (broken ribs), who has not pitched in an MLB game since Oct. 4, 2022 with the Pirates, had a locker at Yankee Stadium on Monday. “He’s getting close to potential activation, so he’s here kind of finishing off his rehab a little bit,” Boone said . . . Oswald Peraza, who has 24 starts at third base, four at second and two at shortstop this season, is taking reps in the outfield. “With our roster now, making sure he gets some reps out there because that could become a realistic thing in the course of the game,” Boone said. “You’re pinch running, you’re making a substitution, just to try and add a little more versatility to him.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
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