This isn’t the fun part of the game — the part where a player is forced to contemplate his baseball mortality. And though he didn’t exactly come out and say it, you have to think it's at the forefront of DJ LeMahieu’s mind. Here he is at age 36, a two-time former batting champion, hitting .
177 with only 61 games left in the season. He’s got one of the slowest swings in the game, according to Baseball Savant, and his weighted on base average on pitches in the heart of the plate is an MLB-worst .143.
He has no home runs in 124 at bats, and 11 RBIs. He has tweaked, he has tinkered, and he is frustrated. And Sunday on the heels of an 0-for-17 skid, those facts earned him a spot on the Yankees bench, with no public assurance from Aaron Boone that this was just a one-time thing.
That’s the right move, though hardly an easy one. But it’s also yet another indication that the Yankees aren’t as complete of a team as they could be, and recently, the results are bearing that out. “It hasn’t given me much hope, the last month or so,” LeMahieu said when he was asked whether he thought he could find a way out of this one.
“As long as I’ve played this game, whatever challenge presented itself, I’ve always come out of it, one way or another. I keep showing up, keep working and that’s gotten me a lot of success.” It’s too bad, of course.
LeMahieu is a steady clubhouse presence and well-respected in the sport, and he still has two more years and $30 million on .