The Yankees lineup looks a little different for the biggest game of the season, and some of Aaron Boone’s tweaks were out of necessity, with DJ LeMahieu out of the lineup with a sports hernia.
As a result, Anthony Rizzo was moved into the leadoff spot, while Gleyber Torres, batting leadoff after LeMahieu went down, has been dropped down to fifth.
“DJ went down, so he’s our leadoff hitter, so obviously we don’t have him now, and I just really value Gleyber in the middle of the lineup,” Boone told Carton and Roberts on Tuesday. “I just feel like behind our guys that get on base the most in Rizzo, Judge, Stanton and Gallo, Gleyber is the guy I want hitting in the middle with hopefully some good opportunities to drive in runs.”
Boone elected to start things off with Rizzo to maintain the continuity of Rizzo, Judge and Stanton, all of whom are able to consistently work the count and spike up pitch counts.
“I just value keeping Rizzo, Judge and Stanton together, and essentially bump them up each a spot, but hitting in their same order that they’ve been,” Boone said.
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Gio Urshela, who was banged up in Sunday’s finale after making a spectacular running catch while crashing into the Rays dugout, is batting seventh and playing third base, as Boone wanted to try and limit the ground he may have to cover, instead going with Andrew Velazquez at shortstop and sitting Rougned Odor, who had been playing third while Urshela handled shortstop.
“He went outside and moved around, took some ground balls, actually looked pretty good,” Boone said of Urshela. “Just felt like because he’s probably not quite 100 percent, sliding him back over to third base and going with the defense at Squid at shortstop. But he can easily move over to short at any point in this game and feel fine about it.”
The full lineup is below:
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