HOUSTON — Aaron Boone was talking about his playing plans for Giancarlo Stanton when he brought up the Yankees’ travel schedule with a hint of exasperation.
“He and I will circle up tonight after the game [Wednesday] and make a call one way or another [Thursday],” Boone said before the Yankees’ 8-7 loss to the Astros on Wednesday at Daikin Park.
“Obviously we’re going to get home late — again — going into the Toronto series. I’ll communicate with him a lot on it and we’ll try to do what’s best for everyone.”
The Yankees begin a crucial three-game series against the Blue Jays on Friday night in The Bronx, but they received no favors from the Astros, who scheduled the 6:40 p.m. (local time) first pitch on Thursday for a getaway game.
The Astros are only traveling to Arlington, Texas, for their weekend series while the Yankees are flying back to New York and will land early Friday morning.
It is not the first time this season the Yankees have been irked by having a late getaway game before a big series — they got into Boston in the early hours of Friday morning in June after playing a Thursday night game in Kansas City — but Boone knows no one is going to feel sorry for them.
“It’s the grind of the season, baby. We’ll make the best of it,” he said. “I have some conversations sometimes [with MLB], but you also understand it’s the nature of the beast and 162 games in 180 days, you’re going to have some tough schedules. But it doesn’t really matter, nobody cares.We’re at that point in the season, we’re in the stretch drive, we need to keep winning games.”
Austin Wells started at catcher for the ninth time in 12 games Wednesday, with his past four starts giving the Yankees some hope he may be turning the corner from an extended skid. After going 3-for-4 on Wednesday, he was batting 8-for-19 with three home runs, three doubles and a walk over his last five games after batting .127 (9-for-71) with a .449 OPS in 23 games before that.
“Encouraging,” Boone said. “Definitely went through some struggles there for a few weeks, but has had some big at-bats here lately. I feel like he is gaining some traction at-bat quality-wise and result-wise.Hopefully that’s something that helps catapult him through this month too.”
In the sixth inning Tuesday, Paul Goldschmidt made a diving stop on a ball and then raced to first to beat Jose Altuve to the bag, but appeared to jam his knee and be in some discomfort after the play.
“He’s all right,” Boone said. “He was a little sore [Tuesday] in general with the knee. But he’s all right.”
Goldschmidt missed two games last month with a sprained right knee.
Austin Slater (hamstring strain) started in right field Wednesday in his fourth rehab game at Triple-A, but could return to the active roster by this weekend.
“We may DH him down there [Thursday] just to get another few days in a row of at-bats, but I would expect him very soon,” Boone said.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
