Anthony Volpe Has Been an Ideal Leadoff Man Lately

The Yankees ended their short two-game losing streak as they used four homers to subdue the Mariners. And while Anthony Volpe didn’t hit one, he had a night that you always look for from your leadoff hitter, something he’s done very well lately. Down in Box Score Briefs, the Orioles get swept, so do the Rays, the Jays won, the Pirates blow a big lead, Max Fried dominated the Cubs, and the Dodgers were shutout. Let’s get to it.

May 22: Yankees 7, Mariners 3

What we are seeing right now from Anthony Volpe is exactly what the Yankees need him to be as a leadoff hitter.

In the victory Wednesday night against the pesky Mariners which stopped a two-game slide, Volpe reached base in three of his four plate appearances - two singles and a walk - and he scored two runs. In other words, he did exactly what a leadoff hitter needs to do, start rallies for the big boys behind him.

Lo and behold, after he singled in the first inning he jogged home on Aaron Judge’s home run, and after his single in the third he jogged home on the first of Juan Soto’s two home runs and just like that, with Volpe as their catalyst, the Yankees had a 4-0 lead.

Remember last season when it seemed like every time the Yankees hit a home run it came with no one on base? Well, it wasn’t every time, but of their 219 long balls in 2023, 130 were solo shots, an incredibly bad 59.3% of the time. That’s what happen when you have a team on-base percentage of .304 which ranked 27th in MLB.

This season, the Yankees’ .336 on-base is third-best, Volpe’s is .348, and of their 73 home runs, 37 have come with the bases empty, just 50.6% which is obviously much better and Volpe has had a key role in that.

“Volpe’s been doing a great job to get on base for us,” Soto said.

Volpe has certainly gone through a bit of a rollercoaster ride this season. He had the great start when he hit .373 through the first 16 games and Aaron Boone moved him into the leadoff spot in the middle of that run. Then he wiped out and hit just .158 with a sickly .247 on-base percentage over his next 19 games.

And now he’s broken out of that rut and is on a career-best 15-game hitting streak and 19-game on-base streak, during which he’s slashing .323/.357/.538 with an OPS of .896.

“I think he’s doing a really good job, and I thought tonight was really good,” Boone said. “I thought he had some really good at bats. He gets a little fortunate with the infield single to start in front of Judge’s homer in the first. Then he smokes a ball up the middle ahead of Soto’s homer. Then he works a really good walk to kind of set the table at the end. Love how he’s playing, obviously he’s playing a big part for us and the defense always seems to show up all the time.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Nestor Cortes continued the run of great starts from the rotation, though like Clarke Schmidt on Tuesday, he didn’t have his best command and it was a grind. But while Schmidt gave up two runs in his five innings, Cortes somehow put up five zeros. He needed 74 pitches to get through three innings as the Mariners kept fouling off pitches, but he found some efficiency in his last two and ended his night at 97 pitches with just three hits and three walks allowed while striking out six. Cortes has given up just five earned runs in six starts and 40.1 innings at home for a 1.11 ERA.

➤ Tommy Kahnle made his season debut with a 1-2-3 sixth, helped by a fine running catch by Judge in center, and then a terrific barehanded play by Volpe on a slow roller. So then in the seventh, ahead 5-0, Boone called on Michael Tonkin and for the life of me, I don’t know why this guy is still on the team. He gave up two singles in the seventh but survived, and then Boone - still feeling his oats up 5-0 - brought Tonkin back out for the eighth. Naturally he walked two men, so finally, Boone called on an actual useful pitcher in Luke Weaver.

➤ OK, I say that, and then Weaver got ahead 0-2 with two blazing fastballs against Cal Raleigh but then decided to throw a changeup and Raleigh whacked it for a three-run homer. Yeah, that sucked, and it snapped Weaver’s scoreless innings streak at 18. But here’s the thing: Why not bring in Weaver to start the eighth, rather than play with fire trying to steal outs with Tonkin, the epitome of a batting practice pitcher? Just maddening. Thankfully, Weaver then retired the final five men he faced with three whiffs to close it out.

➤ Soto made it 5-0 in the sixth with his second opposite field homer off Mariners starter Bryce Miller. “You know he’s a good player watching him across the field,” Cortes said of Soto before he came to the Yankees. “You know how good he is. Once he’s on your side, and the work he puts in and how young he is and how much he cares, it’s just a different factor to him.” Boone said of the two homers, “The two balls he hits out tonight (to left) - there’s not many lefties that hit balls like that.”

➤ In the eighth, the Yankees had a great response after the Mariners got back in it. Judge drew a walk and Alex Verdugo provided some insurance with a two-run bomb to right. The Yankees had only seven hits, but when four leave the park, that generally works out well. The top four in the batting order went 6-for-14 with four homers.

⚾ Hey, the Cardinals did the Yankees a huge favor this week as they completed a three-game sweep Wednesday. They won the opener 6-3, and then Tuesday’s game was suspended by rain and picked up Wednesday and St. Louis’ Nolan Gorman hit a two-run homer in the sixth to win it 3-1.

Then in the schedule game last night, the Orioles jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third, only to see the Cardinals go ahead 4-3 in the sixth on Brendan Donovan’s Little League homer. With two men on he smoked a ball to the wall in left-center. The throw went to the plate trying to nail Dylan Carlson but it was too late, and then catcher James McCann tried to get Donovan running to third and threw it away, so Donovan got up and raced home.

In the ninth, the Orioles were down 5-3 and the first two men singled, but Kyle Stowers grounded into a double play. A run scored, but now there were two outs, and Gunnar Henderson- who right now is a leading candidate for AL MVP - grounded out to end the game. The Yankees now have a three-game lead in the AL East because of all that.

⚾ The best thing that can happen when other AL East teams play each other is for the series to be split, or no worse than two games to one. You want other teams dealing each other losses. Well, the annoying Rays didn’t cooperate as they got swept three straight by the Red Sox, Boston’s first sweep of the Rays in Tampa since 2019. The Red Sox won 8-5 last night rallying from 3-0 down to score all their runs in the fifth and sixth innings. The Red Sox entered this series having lost 15 of their last 16 at Tropicana Field. They’re now 26-24 and in third place, 7.5 games out. Tampa Bay is 25-26 and nine games out.

⚾ Up in Toronto, manager John Schneider continues to sit on a hot seat, but the Jays ripped the White Sox 9-2 for their third win in the last four, though that still leaves them in last place at 22-26, 10.5 games out. They scored seven runs in the second inning as Davis Schneider had a two-run single, Daulton Varsho had a two-run triple, and Bo Bichette hit a two-run homer, just his third of the season.

⚾ The Dodgers rank second in team OPS at .766, a smidge behind the Yankees who lead at .767, but Los Angeles’ potent lineup got blanked 6-0 by six pitchers as the Diamondbacks used an opener, then got five shutout innings from Ryne Nelson. They took two of three from the runaway NL West leaders and won their first series at Dodger Stadium since 2018. “We've been looking for something like this,” manager Torey Lovullo said of his 24-26 team which has not looked like the defending NL champions this season.

⚾ Atlanta’s Max Fried retired the first 15 Cubs he faced and wound up allowing just one earned run on three hits as the Braves ripped the Cubs 9-2 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs’ supposed ace, Justin Steele, who pulled his hamstring on Opening Day and missed more than a month, has been terrible since his return and now has a 5.68 ERA. He was tagged for three of the six runs the Braves scored in the seventh to blow the game open.

Remember when I wrote the other day that Kyle Hendricks might be done? Well, the Cubs didn’t waive him, but they demoted him and his 10.57 ERA to the bullpen. He’ll have a chance to right the ship, but given his lack of velocity and struggle with command this year, I don’t see him being much more than a blowout mop-up man.

⚾ Hey, at least Pirates fans have Paul Skenes’ third MLB start today to look forward to. Last night they blew an early 5-0 lead, and then a 5-3 lead in the eighth and lost 9-5 to the Giants. San Francisco tied it in the ninth with a two-out rally, the run scoring on a single by LaMonte Wade because the previous batter, Luis Matos, singled and took second on an error by left fielder Bryan Reynolds. Then in the 10th, the Giants scored four times on four hits and two walks courtesy of Pirates reliever Carmen Mlodzinski.