Finally Realizing They Need Him, Yankees Call Up Jasson Dominguez

Jasson Dominguez was called up from Triple-A and made an immediate impact as the Yankees rallied late to blow out the Royals 10-4 in the opener of a big three-game series against a team they could very easily see in the postseason. Lets get to it.

Sept. 9: Yankees 10, Royals 4

After pissing everyone off last week by not calling up Jasson Dominguez when rosters expanded to 28, the Yankees reversed course Monday and brought the No. 1 prospect up from Triple-A and immediately inserted him into the lineup as the center fielder batting in the No. 6 hole.

To make room, the Yankees placed DJ LeMahieu on the injured list with a - wink, wink - right hip impingement.

“It’s been something that’s been kind of lingering the last couple of weeks,” Aaron Boone said before the game. “He’s been getting treatment on it. It’s better some days, worse the others. Just something that’s been kind of lingering for a few weeks now.”

OK, sure, we’ll buy that, as long as it gets LeMahieu out of the mix and eventually puts Alex Verdugo where he belongs, sitting next to his buddy Boone in the dugout.

“Jasson’s going to play a lot,” Boone said. “I think he enjoys the bright lights. I don’t think he’s overwhelmed, wherever he is.”

Which begs the question, why wasn’t he up with the Yankees much earlier? He has been back playing for more than a month since missing time with an oblique strain and in 44 games for Scranton he was slashing .309/.368/.480 with seven homers and 25 RBI for an OPS of .848. Why was he toiling down there, while Verdugo was shitting the bed in New York for four months?

Yes, I understand for a good chunk of that Dominguez was hurt, but this is a move the Yankees should have made weeks ago, long before the rosters expanded.

Never mind that Verdugo had a nice game as the Yankees won the opener over the Royals thanks to some rare late-inning fireworks. He played in left field, hit a two-run homer and a single and scored twice, but he was in the lineup because Boone gave slumping Giancarlo Stanton a night off and used Aaron Judge as the DH, so Dominguez played center. I fully expect Dominguez will be in left field Tuesday and Verdugo will be out, and if all goes well, it should stay that way for the foreseeable future. Of course, the key word there is “should” because with Boone, you never know.

Boone was asked what changed in the front office’s mind regarding recalling Dominguez now.

“I don't know about change, other than, look, the roster is a living, breathing organism every day that’s always kind of evolving, and you’re always paying attention,” Boone said. “And like I said on September 1 when we didn’t initially recall Jasson, he’s in the conversation every single day. I think as much as anything, it’s just continuing to build the momentum he’s built here over the last few weeks where we feel like, especially the last couple of weeks, really starting to be in the peak of the season and playing at a really high level. So he’s been knocking on that door since he came back, and now seemed like the time to bring him up.”

I swear, Boone talks in invisible ink. The guy speaks words, but they never mean anything tangible. Rather than just speak the truth, that they finally woke up and realized that Verdugo is a complete waste, Boone tap danced like he always does.

Here are my observations:

➤ Dominguez went 1-for-4 and struck out once, but the hit led to a run. Down 2-0 in the fourth, Dominguez singled, moved to second on a groundout, then was stealing third when Oswaldo Cabrera was drawing a walk. Royals catcher Salvador Perez threw wildly into left field and Dominguez trotted home with New York’s first run.

➤ Seeing the guy who is likely taking his job do that, Verdugo followed with his two-run bomb for a 3-2 lead. “He is gonna come up here, he’s gonna play, he’s gonna help this team win,” Verdugo said after the game. “Whatever that means, that means, right? If I lose a little bit of playing time, I lose a little bit of playing time. At the end of the day, I want to win. The only thing that matters is getting into the playoffs and winning there.”

➤ Carlos Rodon did not pitch poorly, and he was let down by some terrible defense. He went six innings and allowed four runs on six hits and a walk, but he struck out nine and one of the runs was unearned. That came in the first when Tommy Pham led off the game reaching on a throwing error by Jazz Chisholm, he stole second and went to third when Wells threw the ball into center field, and scored on a Perez single.

➤ In the fifth, we had the nightly Gleyber Torres folly. Bobby Witt singled with two outs and then Perez hit a pop into short right. This was a play that Juan Soto should have made, but he deferred to Torres who ranged out there, then overran the ball and wound up dropping it as Witt scored the tying run from first base. And then in the sixth, Rodon could only blame himself for serving up a solo homer to Hunter Renfroe that put the Royals ahead 4-3.

➤ He was taken off the hook in the seventh when the Yankees raked against reliever James McArthur and regained the lead. With one out, Torres singled, Soto walked and Judge tied the game with an RBI single. Wells then followed with a three-run shot to right for a 7-4 lead. And in the eighth, after Luke Weaver worked himself into and then out of trouble, the Yankees tacked on three more as Torres had an RBI single, a run scored when Judge grounded into a double play, and Wells had an RBI double .“I was jacked. I was blacked out,” said Wells. “I was pissed off about the way the prior at-bats and the game had gone, so just a big release of emotion.”

➤ Weaver’s wobble in the eighth aside, the bullpen was good. Jake Cousins walked a batter in the seventh, and Ian Hamilton, working easily with a six-run lead, made his return to the mound after a two-month absence and went 1-2-3, so three scoreless innings worked well.

➤Like Stanton, Anthony Volpe was given a night off so Oswaldo Cabrera played short, though Volpe did come into the game as a pinch runner and played short in the ninth.

➤ Meanwhile at Fenway Park, the Red Sox laid the wood on the puzzling Orioles in a 12-3 blowout, and that allowed the Yankees to extend their lead to 1.5 games.