Giancarlo Stanton’s career with the New York Yankees has not gone to plan.
The reigning National League MVP, coming off a 59 home-run season in the expansive Marlins Park, was traded from Miami to the Bronx where he would call the hitter-friendly confines of Yankee Stadium home.
Yankees fans and home run connoisseurs alike salivated over the idea of Stanton playing in a ballpark that has had over 1,000 round trippers hit over its fences in the past five years alone.
But this is why they play the games.
Stanton has experienced a dreadful start to his Yankees career, slashing .197/.203/.409 with three home runs, 10 RBI and a whopping 29 strikeouts in 16 games. It’s made Yankees fans to turn on him, serenading the slugger with a chorus of boos after every defeat at the plate.
Those struggles are the face of New York’s mediocre 8-8 start, a record that already has placed it six games back of the American League East-leading Boston Red Sox.
While Stanton had stated that the struggles and the boos are not getting to him, it’s becoming clear that Yankee Stadium is becoming a house of horrors for the 28-year-old, which is not a good omen for the Bronx Bombers.
The Yankees have had a perfect split of eight home and road games apiece and the gap between Stanton’s production is cause for concern. In trips to Toronto, Boston and Detroit, Stanton is slashing .323/.417/.677 with two home runs and nine strikeouts.
At Yankee Stadium, those numbers freefall to an .086/.179/.171 slash line with one home run and 20 strikeouts. Stanton went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts during New York’s most recent series, a two-game hosting of his former team, the Marlins.
It’s forcing Aaron Boone to consider moving Stanton down in the lineup in an attempt to take some pressure off his shoulders at the No. 3 spot. Unfortunately for Stanton, he’s facing the next eight games in the Bronx which means he has to figure this out quickly or Yankees fans might start burning his jerseys in the bleachers.
