Alexander Wilson
There is a moment every spring when Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton walks to the plate and you remember exactly who this man is. Thursday was one of those moments.
In a 5-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Steinbrenner Field, the 36-year-old designated hitter was an absolute force. He barely missed two home runs on separate at-bats before finally getting one over the fence on his third try.
The first would have been a no-doubter down the line but was ruled foul, and if you were standing in the ballpark you know what you saw. The second was crushed dead to center, carrying the kind of exit velocity that empties dugouts, but the wind knocked it down just short of the warning track. On another day with no breeze, Stanton likely walks out of Tampa with three home runs in a single game. He settled for one, and the New York Yankees settled for a win.
“If we can just bottle this up and move it north,” Aaron Boone said with a grin afterward. “He looks great, feels great, obviously.”
What Last Season Showed
Before getting too excited, it is worth grounding this in context. Stanton has been here before. The spring looks great, the early returns are encouraging, and then the elbows flare up and everything gets complicated.
In 2025, Stanton did not make his season debut until June 16. He spent the first 70 games of the year on the injured list after severe epicondylitis in both elbows sidelined him before Opening Day. At one point, surgery felt like a real possibility. Instead, he gutted it out, reported to Somerset for rehab games, and returned to the Yankees lineup just before the All-Star break looking like a man who had been waiting impatiently for six weeks.
What followed was a reminder of what this lineup looks like when he is right. In 44 combined games across July and August, Stanton hit .309/.386/.721 with 17 home runs and 43 RBIs. He was carrying a 1.019 OPS at his peak. Over the full 77-game season, his final numbers landed at .273/.350/.594 with 24 home runs and 66 RBIs, a 158 wRC+. To put that in perspective, a 158 wRC+ is what MVP candidates post. He produced those numbers in roughly half a season while managing genuine pain in both arms.
The elbow injuries have not healed and are not going to heal. Stanton has been direct about that all offseason. “That’ll never be the case,” he said in February, via NJ.com. “Not while I’m in this line of work. You have your good days and bad days.” He has also mentioned that day-to-day tasks remain difficult. Opening a bag of chips is a challenge. Swinging a bat at 99 mph fastballs is apparently still manageable.
Why the Spring Matters More Than Usual
The Bombers need Stanton available early in 2026 in a way they have not in recent years. The rotation is operating without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon for at least the first several weeks of the season. Keeping the offense at maximum production during that window is critical.
This spring has been encouraging. Over eight games, Stanton is slashing .273/.261/.818 with four home runs and six RBIs. The on-base percentage is low, which is partly a function of not drawing many walks and partly a spring sample quirk, but the contact quality is not something you can fake. Four spring home runs, multiple near-misses, and the kind of raw exit velocity that turns outfielders into spectators tells you the bat speed is there. The elbow management is working.
What makes Stanton uniquely valuable in this lineup is not just the power, though the power is extraordinary. It is the fear he generates two spots behind whoever is batting cleanup. When Stanton is healthy and locked in, pitchers have to choose their battles. They can pitch around Judge, but Stanton is lurking. They can get to Bellinger or Rice, but Stanton is lurking. The middle of this order with a healthy Stanton in it is genuinely one of the most dangerous collections of hitters in the American League.
The Yankees have built their roster with the understanding that they are getting somewhere between 80 and 110 games of Stanton per year. In the last five seasons in New York, he has averaged 104 games and 28 home runs annually. He is on the all-time home run list with 453, closing in on 500 at a rate that would already be Hall of Fame territory if not for the injuries stealing so many at-bats over the years.
The question has never been whether Stanton can produce. It is whether he can stay on the field long enough for the production to matter. Thursday was one day. The next 162 games are what count.
But if the man who nearly hit three home runs against a major league defense in March is the same man who takes the field on Opening Night in San Francisco, the Yankees are going to be very difficult to beat.
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