Giancarlo Stanton went viral for all the wrong reasons on Saturday, jogging from third base to home on a play at the plate that would have been a go-ahead run for the Yankees.
Stanton was thrown out easily in the latest display of casual baserunning, as Aaron Boone told reporters that the oft-injured slugger is trying to preserve himself and avoid another lower body ailment that has plagued his past few seasons.
But Tiki said such preservation is far outweighed by the “optics” of the level of effort that Stanton showed on that play at the plate.
“He wasn’t trying. I hate to say that about a professional athlete, but he wasn’t trying,” Tiki said. “He was trying not to get hurt.
“After he swings his bat - he’s trying when he’s swinging - but as soon as that ball hits his bat, he turns into a non-athlete.”
Tiki acknowledges how important Stanton is to the team, but he believes a player opens the door even wider for future injury when the thought of an injury is prevalent in the player’s mind, and the caution is not worth how it makes the Yankees look when Stanton is jogging around third base.
“I can’t excuse Aaron Boone’s excuses for him. I can’t excuse Giancarlo Stanton’s ‘I just don’t want to get hurt mindset,’ because the optics of how he looks when he’s running makes it seem so lackadaisical,” Tiki said. “It’s an indictment on the team.
“It looks like a team that doesn’t care when you have one of your best hitters spending 60 percent of what he does like he doesn’t care. It’s inexcusable.”
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