Anthony Volpe’s season — and big league career, really — has been built on streaks, the cold ones usually lasting longer than the hot ones.
So perhaps the past 10 days are nothing more than a hot streak that will be followed by a brutally cold one.
But since returning from a cortisone injection in his left shoulder to help treat the lingering effects of a partially torn labrum, the Yankees shortstop has looked more like his best version while regaining a grip on his starting job.
Shortly before Volpe missed nearly a week — being unavailable or limited for four games while recovering from the shot and then simply sitting in favor of José Caballero for another game on either side of that — there were questions about whether Caballero might take over at shortstop.
Volpe had been scuffling at the plate and in the field for an extended stretch, and the situation seemed to be coming to a breaking point.
But then Volpe received some physical relief for the injury he had been playing through since May, and in nine games since through Friday, he was batting .313 (10-for-32) with a .759 OPS while playing clean defense.
“It feels like you can go out and play and do what you’re trying to do,” Volpe said before going 1-for-4 in an 8-4 win over the Orioles, a game in which he was robbed of extra bases on a fly ball to the gap and also flew out to the warning track in center. “We’re here for hours before the game and you can pretty much test and see where you’re at every day. It just feels good to feel like you progress all the way to the game instead of doing stuff that doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s helping.”
Volpe started at shortstop Friday for the seventh time in the last eight games and eighth in the last 10, quieting some of the noise that had surrounded him, at least for now — though it may not take much for fans to turn on the player who had become a lightning rod.
“I think he’s playing well,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I really think defensively, he’s settled in the last month or so or even longer now where he’s playing aggressively, he’s attacking the ball. I feel like he’s in a good place out there, looking like Anthony.
“Offensively, I feel like the last — maybe since he’s come back … he’s night in and night out [had] really competitive at-bats. Even [Thursday] night, doesn’t get a hit, but I felt like the at-bats [were] competitive. He’s given us a little bit of a presence down towards the bottom of the lineup.”
The Yankees believe the best version of their team includes Volpe starting at shortstop — and playing effectively on both sides of the ball — with Caballero coming off the bench as the ultimate pinch-running threat who helps with his defensive versatility.
If Volpe can sustain what he has shown over the last week-plus, that becomes more realistic heading into the postseason.
“We got to keep going out there and doing it,” Boone said. “I have a lot of confidence in him right now. I feel like he’s playing well. He’s a big part of us and our success moving forward.”
Throughout the worst of Volpe’s struggles this season, the Yankees pointed to his playoff run last season when he consistently put together some of the best at-bats of anyone in the lineup. Whether he can repeat that level of success again this October remains to be seen, though he seems to have given himself a chance with a physical (and perhaps mental) reset in mid-September.
“There’s so much that’s so different [this year],” Volpe said. “You’re so in the moment and so present. … But at the same time, feeling where you’re at, you feel like you’re trending in the right direction. It feels good at the right time.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
