It’s not a secret to anybody that the New York Yankees are built to hit home runs. It’s in their DNA, and it’s the lineup’s calling card: Joey Gallo, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, and others are built to hit the ball a mile.
In 2022, the Yankees have shown that they dig the long ball. As of Tuesday afternoon, they lead the majors in home runs with 52, three more than the second-place team (a three-way tie between the Houston Astros, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Angels, with 49), and they also have the highest isolated power, with .180.
Those numbers are extremely impressive considering the current offensive environment in MLB, where runs, and home runs to be precise, are scarce.
Three of the top four players in home runs are members of the Yankees’ roster: Aaron Judge (12) leads the league, and Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo have ten each, with Astros’ slugger Yordan Alvarez (11) sandwiched between them.
Everybody is hitting homers for the Yankees
They are even getting home runs from unexpected sources: in the Yankees’ 6-2 win against the Orioles on Monday, they got a key home run from Jose Trevino, and Donaldson and Rizzo also went yard.
“You have guys that have hit a lot of home runs in this game for a long time,” Rizzo told MLB.com. “I don’t think we’re really trying to go up there and slug. We’re trying to just pass it on to the next guy, and that’s the best part.”
The Yankees, who have gotten 51.4 percent of their runs out of the home run ball, have won 21 of their last 25 games.
“Our offense is going to give us opportunities throughout the game, and we know that,” Donaldson said. “We know that if we don’t get the job done early on, we’re going to have more opportunities to do that.”
The Yankees really dig the long ball.