The injury bug that hit the New York Yankees at spring training is giving other players the opportunity to make the Opening Day roster and make an impact.
In the team’s 12-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday, Dominic Smith went 2-for-3 with four RBI.
Smith is a candidate for the Yankees’ Opening Day designated hitter job, with the injury to Giancarlo Stanton likely landing him on the injured list to start the season and for the foreseeable future. Stanton tends to miss many games, and the Bronx Bombers will need to make up for his production.
Smith is having himself quite the spring, with a batting average of .308, two home runs, nine RBI, and an OPS of 1.077. Being a lefty hitter will bode well for the 29-year-old, considering Yankee Stadium is not only a hitter-friendly ballpark, but with the short porch in right field, it’s a dream for lefties.
Should he win the job, it provides another chance to cement himself in New York, albeit on the other side of town. Once a top prospect of the Mets, he was a top-10 bat in the National League during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, slashing .316/.377/.616 (.993 OPS) with 10 home runs and 42 RBI in 50 games.
It appeared as though it would be an anomaly. In the 449 games he has played since then with the Mets, Washington Nationals, Boston Red Sox, and Cincinnati Reds, Smith owns a .241 average and a .671 OPS.
There is another candidate for DH, and that’s Ben Rice, who came up a season ago to replace an injured Anthony Rizzo. Other than his three-home run game against the Boston Red Sox, he was underwhelming.
Rice had a solid approach at the plate and was able to work counts, but his bat wasn’t ready for the majors. He came to camp this spring, put on some muscle, and looks like the guy who showed some flashes of pop last season; he’s a different hitter.
He’s batting just .214 during spring training, but the ball is coming off his bat much harder than it was a season ago. His lone home run got out in a hurry, so with time, he could flourish into the Yankees’ everyday DH and possibly a solid backup catcher and first baseman.
The 26-man Opening Day roster for the 2025 Yankees will not look as originally expected with all the injuries they’ve dealt with over the last couple of weeks. Teams tend to keep additional pitchers rather than hitters, but with New York’s uncertainty in the rotation, at third base, and DH, they might bring an even split.
